Photo by Boyd Loving
Budget number crunch continues in Ridgewood
Thursday March 28, 2013, 3:36 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Of the 13 personnel reductions proposed to trim the fat from a working $44 million spending plan and reduce this year’s municipal tax levy, Ridgewood officials will consider eliminating at least one department supervisory position.
Ridgewood Chief Financial Officer Stephen Sanzari and Village Manager Ken Gabbert go over budget numbers at a meeting on Tuesday.
Village council members expect to discuss that move as well as other budgetary bullet points, which were identified during a special meeting earlier this week. The potential restructuring of three specific jobs and how the salary shift will impact the feasibility of realizing a zero percent tax increase for 2013 will also be discussed, likely at the council’s April 3 work session.
At press time, the council and village finance officials were still seeking a combination of new revenue and expense reductions totaling between $470,000 and $500,000, the threshold needed to equal last year’s tax levy. Based on the preliminary budget numbers used this week, the average Ridgewood taxpayer would see a 1.5 percent increase over last year’s taxes, or roughly $70.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/200484441_Budget_number_crunch_continues_in_Ridgewood.html
Great….but what about the elephant in the room. SCHOOL TAXES
Get out and vote the school budget down.
I say no to any more job loss in the d p w. most dept’s are down to the bottom of the work force. we pay tax’s for service. the police and fire dept’s are at a real good work force.. why are some dept’s down to the lowest amount of workers ever. you look at street dept down to 6 in 2013, in 2000 they had 20. how is the village keeping up with all that needs to be done. I know in leaf pick up they steel workers from all other dept’s.not good. why because other work will not get done. ware did all the money go from all the workers who left. hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. did any one’s tax’s go down, not mine.
The BOE has neither the balls nor the intelligence to make the necessary hard decisions relative to the schools budget.
They do not know how to think outside the box.
Like many companies, they’ve already “bought cheaper pencils”
They should consider more impactful restructuring, like eliminating redundant admins such as having full principals at each school.
On the patch, some ignorant hens are blaming Christie for Ridgewood’s reduced tax relief for schools and think their problems will be solved if they vote in a democrat.
What the dumbasses don’t realize is that Christie was REQUIRED to reduce school finding by the democratic NK. Supreme Court to redirect state income taxes to the likes of Paterson, Newark, Trenton, etc to the tube of billions.
So, don’t blame Christie. Blame youselces, Ridgewood voters, because you have voten Democrat and continue to want to give everybody everything but don’t want to pay for it yourselves
Thed
people it’s all bull shit. if tax’s go down the services will go down all around. we don’t need a paid fire dept. we do need paid e m s . why well that’s 90% of all the call’s. so u tell me. how many fire’s do we have in town. come on.