Public Interest Wanes After Third Manufactured Crisis… President Obama Faces ‘Cliff Fatigue’ in Latest Budget Fight
ANALYSIS By RICK KLEIN
Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk. Delays await at airports. Padlocks are ready at national parks.
The nation will suffer greater risk of wildfires, workplace deaths, and even surprise weather events, if government predictions are to be believed. Our entire military readiness and superiority are at risk.
What if nobody cares?
President Obama sure does. He’s making the case, aggressively and comprehensively, that the automatic spending cuts set to go into effect at the end of the month will have a devastating impact, both on the economy and on essential government services.
“They will slow our economy. They will eliminate good jobs. They will leave many families who are already stretched to the limit scrambling to figure out what to do,” the president said Saturday in his weekly radio address.
But there are few signs to suggest the public is listening. A poll out late last week found that barely one in four Americans said they’d heard much about the automatic spending cuts — known unhelpfully for public-comprehension purposes as “sequestration” — and four in 10 said they were comfortable with the cuts going into effect.
“Here’s yet another deadline, and everyone’s telling us everything will be destroyed if we go past it,” said Michael Dimock, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which conducted the poll. “It’s very hard to get the same sense of urgency for a third time in a row, just two months after the last one.”
Photo credit: Boyd A. Loving Village Parks Department Truck Takes Out Utility Pole on North Maple Avenue
February 25,2013
Boyd A. Loving
4:33 PM
Ridgewood NJ , A hydraulic boom on a Village owned truck driven by a Parks Department employee swung from its cradled position and collided with a utility pole on North Maple Avenue near Mastin Place on Tuesday afternoon.
Photo credit: Boyd A. Loving
Ridgewood Police Department patrol units closed North Maple Avenue in both directions between Linwood Avenue and Mastin Place while crews from PSE&G worked to first stabilize, then replace the pole. No electrical service interruptions were observed in the area. Ridgewood Fire Department personnel also assisted at the scene. There were no injuries reported by any Village or PSE&G employees.
A bit Late : Wall Street warns Christie to avoid election-year budget moves
By Salvador Rizzo/The Star-Ledger
on February 24, 2013 at 12:10 PM, updated February 24, 2013 at 6:08 PM
Editors Note : We had to laugh when we saw this article , its funny Wall Street never seemed to warn James Florio , Christine Todd Whitman, Jim McGreevey, and Jon Corzine for getting us into this mess . Nor have they warned about all the irresponsible spending and behavior in New Jersey’s Assemble and Senate . So where have the Wall Street wizards been the last 30 years?
TRENTON — When Gov. Chris Christie rolls out his new budget on Tuesday, Wall Street will be watching closely — and is warning that any false moves or election-year gimmicks could trigger more downgrades of New Jersey’s credit rating.
Analysts at Fitch Ratings, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have all recently drawn their lines in the sand, telling the governor to steer clear of budgeting tricks that would lower costs in the short term by kicking the can down the road.
For example, skimping on the state’s pension contribution — which is set to rise from $1.1 billion in the current budget year to nearly $1.7 billion in the next — would upset all three agencies and could set off downgrades, the agencies say.
So would borrowing more money, relying heavily on one-shot sources of revenue, and failing to close a budget shortfall that reached $473 million at the end of January, among other concerns.
“What we’re looking for is a really strong economic rebound, combined with efforts at the state level to achieve a structurally balanced budget,” said John Sugden, an S&P credit analyst.
Bergen, Passaic writers join book drive for Paterson children
Sunday, February 24, 2013
BY KARA YORIO
STAFF WRITER
The Record
No one understands the power of books better than a writer.
“Books enlighten, they entertain, they change lives,” said best-selling author and Ridgewood resident Harlan Coben. “They open up whole new worlds.”
Coben was looking around his house Friday for children’s books that he planned to take — with copies of his young adult novels “Shelter” and “Seconds Away” — to the Ridgewood Public Library to contribute to The Big Book Drive.
“This is a no-brainer,” Coben said about participating in the book-donation campaign by the Paterson library system and The Record and Herald News, with the Ridgewood and Fair Lawn public libraries, to collect books for Paterson children to take home.
Books will be distributed to children and families at the grand opening of a new Paterson library branch in April. The Northside library branch was destroyed during Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011. Thousands of books have already been donated.
On Friday, other writers with North Jersey connections joined Coben in describing the life-changing — even lifesaving — force within a good book.
Tiger Team : The Financial Advisory Committee has serious concerns that Ridgewood is on an unsustainable fiscal path
The Financial Advisory Committee has serious concerns that Ridgewood is on an unsustainable fiscal path. The EAC report from 1991 provides some historical perspective.In 1980, the portion of Ridgewood property taxes related to the Village budget was $5,526,000. In 2011, 31 years later, it was $32,065,472…more than a 480% increase or a compound annual growth rate of over 5.8%.Similarly, the Village budget grew over 410% from $8,707,000 to $44,484,000 during the same period.Importantly, taxes have grown at a significantly faster rate than the budget. In 1991, the EAC observed that both of these figures had increased over the previous decade much faster than the rate of inflation. The same is true from 2001 through 2011. The EAC noted that the second most important driver of the budget and property tax increases was Debt Service (due to a large amount of variable rate debt at high rates in the 1980s) andthe “largest single budgetary growth item has been Salaries, Wages & Benefits”, adding that this item
“represented 46.6%” of the total Village expenditure growth in 10 years. To this point they went on to say “There may have been a time, a decade ago or more (1960s -1970s), when municipal employees were paid less than comparable workers in the private sector…In those days, we presume many municipal employees accepted modest pay for job security. The intervening decade of the 1980s has seen the closing of the private vs. public wage gap. A continuation of a mentality thatsupports ‘catch up’ employee compensation and benefit type agreements is no longer reasonable or warranted.”
The EAC made several recommendations including, the necessity of “thorough re-evaluation of existing salary step scales” and a “thorough re-evaluation of existing benefit packages.” Their opinion was that Village labor costs are the single most important fiscal responsibility of the Village Council, and the development of a long-range labor relations and compensation strategy was needed. Interestingly, they observed that collective bargaining agreements were being negotiated against more skilled professional union negotiators, “without clear, comprehensive objectives and a long – range strategy—that is, the Village’s approach was ‘ad hoc’ in character.” Although these observations were made 21 years ago, they are the same observations that our committee is making today , with regard to employee compensation and benefits.
As the previous chart illustrates, the total compound annual growth rate of Village property taxes over the past ten years (2001–2011) was over 4.8%. The portion of this related to the Village budget grew at a compound annual rate of over 5.6%, almost unchanged from the rate over the past three decades.If we do nothing to alter the course of the Village ’s finances, the average property tax bill in Ridgewood is on track to increase over 60% from $15,606 to $25,035 in the next 9 years, based on the growth rate since 2001.
The committee believes that the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the Village can and must be improved and that Village management must make this and the reduction of municipal expenditures its primary objectives, with the ultimate goal of stabilizing property taxes and reducing them over time. What our committee fou nd was startling. The Village Council must implement bold structural policies that dramatically improve fiscal awareness, transparency, accountability and sustainability on a permanent basis across all departments throughout the Village. As the EAC also concluded, over many years Village management has made overly generous promises on compensation, pensions and healthcare.Taxpayers have tolerated these promises
.
This appears to have fostered a belief among many Village employees ,some in Village management and union leadership that Ridgewood taxpayers will always pay the resulting tax increases. In 2010, the Village was forced to implement emergency lay offs to address financial shortfalls, affecting 10% of its workforce. In our meetings with Village management, it was noted that contractual union policies led to the dismissal of some of the Village’s most
productive young employees and retention of many senior employees , who werehighly compensated
.
Without significant annual property tax increases, Ridgewood cannot meet its future liabilities and will likely be forced to enact further lay-offs, despite its pledges to the contrary . Under the status quo, we believe that it will be impossible to avoid a reduction in the Village service we enjoy today. In recent years, the Ridgewood News has documented the beginnings of the erosion in our quality of life on several occasions.The Village’s multi-year collective bargaining agreements drive growth in expenditures on wages, pensions and healthcare far in excess of the 2% annual property tax cap enacted in 2010. In fact, pension & healthcare benefits for Village workers are exempt from the 2% cap. Property taxes related to the Village
budget have actually risen by a compound annual rate of more than 5.6% a year since 2001. The following chart details the primary budget categories. Ridgewood’s top three municipal budget expenses- Public Safety, Insurance (Health, Workman’s Comp & Other) and Pension & Social Security have increased at a compound annual rate of 6.0% since 2001. This compares with overall Village budget growth of 4.0%, and an annualized inflation rate (CPI) of only 2.47%. In the 2011 adopted budget, these three costs were $22,586,882 constituting 50.8% of total Village expenditures.
The previous chart clearly shows most of the growth coming from Pension & Social Security and Insurance.These two budget categories have combined to grow at an astounding compound annual rate of 10.8% since 2001. Further, 10 years ago, Pension & Social Security ranked as the 8th larges t budget category at only 3% of the total budget. In just 10 years, it has exploded by 441%(over 5X) to become the 3rd largest category at 11%. At the projected pace, Pension & Social Security will become the 2nd largest budget category in 2013 and will surpass Public Safety by almost 12% to become the largest budget item in 2018, at over $16,000,000 . The growth of Pension & Social Security is a function of many variables, including the number of employees, the current compensation structures, the number of retirees, the ability of the pension system to achieve its investment return objectives, the percentage of salary granted in pension benefits and the pensionable portion of compensation, to name a few. However, the ability of the Village Council to control this growth is extremely limited and is most effectively addressed through changes to the employee compensation structure, limiting pensionable compensation and developing a long-term staffing strategy.
The current size and growth rate of the top three categories require that all three be addressed in a coordinated manner. If these three items continue to grow at their current rate (Insurance at 99% and Pension & Social Security at 441%) , the required funding for them will grow to $54,319,000 in 10 years (see chart below), which would require massive tax increases over the adopted 2011 Village budget. In fact, Pension & Social Security costs are on pace to be almost $26.9MM by 2021, which is equivalent to over 60% of the 2011 budget. These three items together are projected to be 122% of the entire 2011 budget by 2021.
In simple terms, by 2021, future Village Councils and Village Managers will have less flexibility for discretionary spending. From a property taxpayer’s perspective, the annual increases in our property taxes will not go to improve the quality of life and services for residents. Instead they will be required to fund mandated salary and benefit obligations.
Village employees are not to blame for the generous agreements between Village management and union negotiators. However, since the global financial crisis in 2008, few private sector employees have seen rising salaries. In fact, many Village residents have experienced decreasing incomes, or worse, have lost their jobs and/or homes. We have reached a critical juncture. If we don’t make significant changes to the terms in uture collective bargaining agreements, our property taxes will continue to spiral beyond residents’ ability to afford them, with no improvement in our financial condition or Village services.
A significant number of Village employees are nearing retirement age in the next two years. Several collective bargaining agreements are a lso expiring through 2014/15. The path forward is clear. Taxpayers must insist on union concessions in future collective bargaining agreements. Hard choices are required and the Village Council must have the political will to make them.
Report of the Finance Advisory Committee
https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/2013FinancialAdvisoryReportFINAL.pdf
Bob Menendez at the Ridgewood REORG photo by Boyd Loving
Long-time escort confirms Senator Bob Menendez paid her for sex
A professional escort who travels the East Coast seeing clients in cities from Miami to Boston has identified a photo of Senator Bob Menendez as a man who paid her for sex. The woman, in her late 30s, told The Daily Caller prior to seeing Menendez’s photo that she had been paid to provide sexual favors to several U.S. senators, including a New Jersey Democrat and other politicians who are no longer living.
The escort, who earns money having sex with men in upscale hotel rooms, said during an in-person interview that many of her wealthy and powerful customers use pseudonyms when arranging for her services, and when meeting her in person.
New Jersey Hospital Association Expands Bundled Payment Pilot Program
Written by Heather Linder | February 21, 2013
The New Jersey Hospital Association is in the process of expanding its pilot program for “gainsharing,” a system that aligns Medicare payments to help hospitals and physicians work together, according to Healthcare Finance News.
Hospitals and physicians who were part of NJHA’s program were allowed to share in any savings if they successfully reduced costs and met federal quality standards, according to the report. CentraState Medical Center in Freehold attested to saving $2.2 million over three years.
Why in the World Are We All Keynesians Again? The Flimsy Case for Stimulus Spending
By Andrew T. Young
February 14, 2013
The U.S. federal government responded to the financial crisis and recession that began in 2007–08 with unprecedented fiscal stimulus. Passed in February of 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) came with a price tag of $831 billion. Yet the economy has not returned to a path of robust economic growth and unemployment has stubbornly remained high; only in September of 2012 did it dip (barely) below 8 percent. This has not stopped the Obama administration from pushing for further fiscal stimulus.
Whether or not fiscal spending stimulus is effective hinges critically on the size of the spending multiplier, which is dependent on several factors. In particular, if individuals anticipate the future tax liabilities associated with deficit spending and/or are “crowded out” by the deficit spending, then the multiplier is likely to be less than one; that is, each dollar of stimulus increases total spending in the economy by less than one dollar. Ultimately, whether the government spending multiplier is less than or greater than one is an empirical question.
While no one seriously debates the long-run costs associated with exploding public debt, the evidence suggesting significant short-run benefits of stimulus spending is weak. Studies suggesting that stimulus spending is effective assume that current economic activity does not affect fiscal policy. This assumption is questionable and, most important, the studies’ results are very sensitive to it.
Spending Beyond Our Means: How We Are Bankrupting Future Generations
By Jagadeesh Gokhale
February 13, 2013
Current U.S. fiscal policy, including the recently concluded “fiscal cliff” debt deal, is placing an enormous financial burden on today’s children and on future generations in order to deliver government benefits to current middle-aged workers and their elders. Standard government accounting methods hide that intergenerational transfer from the public and make it difficult to calculate how large the transfer is. Intergenerational resource transfers will grow larger as the composition of budget receipts and expenditures changes with relatively faster growth of age- and gender-related social insurance programs. Intergenerational redistributions through federal government operations could substantially affect different generations’ economic expectations and choices and exert powerful long-term effects on economic outcomes.
District 6 H.S. wrestling: Ridgewood wins team crown
Sunday, February 24, 2013
BY JJ CONRAD
STAFF WRITER
The Record
FAIR LAWN — Ridgewood’s Joe Oliva had just helped guide the Maroons to their first District 6 championship on Saturday, but not even five minutes had passed when the junior standout was already thinking about just how good next year’s team can be.
“We’re returning nine place-winners next year,” said Oliva, who captured the 126-pound district title at Fair Lawn with a 9-5 win over Saddle Brook/Glen Rock’s Mike Andreano. “I think this team has a bright future. Saddle Brook has been the team to beat around here the last four years, but we’ve worked hard, too. [Saturday] we had some kids bump up and win some big matches for us.”
Ridgewood coach Torre Watson admitted he was a bit apprehensive following Friday’s strong opening night performance, but he knew the Maroons had the talent to finish the job Saturday.
After a first-round exit in the state tournament, Watson said Ridgewood put a bit more stock in this year’s district tourney.
Ridgewood NJ , On Saturday, February 11, the Ridgewood High School girls’ track team swept the North 1, Group 4 sectional championship by a 28 and one-half point lead over West Orange. This is the second consecutive sectional title for the girls’ team in two years.
Seniors Micaela McPadden won the 400 meter race and Mimi DeVita claimed gold in the pole vault. Sophmore Kelly Cleary and junior Laura Weisberger finished first and second in the 1,600 meter race, respectively, with Weisberger surging back from fourth place in the final lap.
The boys’ team also won, with two big victories coming from senior Nick Salamone in the 1,600 and 3,200 meter
Sponsored by Valley Hospital and Ridgewood Education Foundation
Largest science extravaganza in Northern New Jersey designed to introduce students and the community to the exciting world of science. Super Science Saturday appeals to everyone from the casual observer to the aspiring acientist.
The goal is to spark an interest in science and to connect adults and organizations with with whom you you can further explore your passions. Held Saturday, March 9th at Ridgewood High School from 9AM to 1:30PM SCHEDULE 9 to 1pm Hall of Science 9 to 1pm Science Expo 9:30AM Franklin Institute Presents: LIFE IN SPACE 11:15am; 12:15pm; 1:15pm Incredible Egg Drop 12:30pm Paper Airplane Contest 1:30pm Live Rocket Launch RUTHER DETAILS AND HOW TO BECOME A PRESENTER – Go to www.SuperScienceSaturday.org
Ridgewood says other reader comments have definite anti cop bias
From what I read I can see a definite anti cop bias. But overall the people posting vent about public employees in general. There is a vast majority of people who have a har-on for what the public workers make.
This gets inflamed when cops tell you what you can and cannot do or ticket you for what the public thinks are bull sh-t infractions. Reading post’s here and on the patch people write about pedestrian safety but I would bet if one of those people who posted got a ticket for failure to yield they would be the first to bash the cop’s as being useless and overpaid.
