Reader says Of course there are some legitimate reasons to stay anonymous
Of course there are some legitimate reasons to stay anonymous as even some Valley employees are questioning this massive proposal. But when some folks get into cheap shots and personal attacks, I’m curious to see if they would ever have the courage to do it in person or at least attach a name to a post.
And I also agree they need to modernize and expand, but not the way it is laid out in this joke of a compromise. I just hope there are bodies in seats at the meetings, and not just the folks bused in from Valley.
Anonymous
67.159.5.242
Submitted on 2013/03/02 at 7:38 am
This comment came from and IP used specifically to hide the persons identity and spam websites
Hey ASSHOLE, I can make my ip address number I want. You don’t scare me and I don’t give a crap what ip address you post ASSHOLE!
Hide My Ass! Free Proxy node index
Proxy node information: currently using our IP address 1/1 (67.159.5.242) and proxy server 6/7.
-As a very long subscriber to the Record it has had an incredible slide in quality of reporting, with a particular obvious agenda that has little interest to the readers of Bergen & Passaic Counties, passionately promoted by the deceiving musings of the oped editor & his repetitive selections. If the paper is to survive, it needs to make itself relevant to its readership & trim the staff, get new blood & a fresh take on bullets of interest besides its weary & tiresome daily diatribes. Definitely the internet is not helpful, but to skim the paper everyday instead of reading it because of its nonstop repetitiveness certainly has not helped stimulate readership.
-I’m a life-long resident of Bergen county, and I read the Record to see whats going on. I agree that the editor and many columnists are such left wingers that I consider not renewing my subscription. I do know many people who do NOT renew due to the political left wing posture of the paper.If they cant get it delivered on time soon, I also won’t renew.
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Thinking Spring? A new organization – the Conservancy for Ridgewood Parklands – has been formed with the mission to provide funding and support to restore and enhance the Village park lands. They are holding a Spring Plant Sale offering a wide variety of popular plants
Click Here for order form with plant selections. https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/2013Plant.pdf
Financial Update on Ridgewood Community School, Cafeteria ,Infant /Toddler Development Center and Budget
Assistant Superintendent for Business Angelo DeSimone provided a mid year update on revenues from the three entities.The community school is at a break-even point; spring season provides the largest income and is yet to come. The cafeteria shows a flat increase that reflects a profit minus the expenses for required equipment purchases. The Infant /Toddler center is struggling financially; administrators are reviewing the program and how to make it more competitive.
Budget Update Assistant Superintendent for Business Angelo DeSimone gave a status report on the 2013-2014 budget preparations. Board trustees now have in hand a budget for all appropriations (all line items); the next step is to balance the budget.
March Meeting Dates of the Board of Education are Revised The March 4 regular public meeting of the Ridgewood Board of Education has been moved to Wednesday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m.The March 25 regular public meeting of the Ridgewood Board of Education has been changed to Wednesday, March 27 at 7:30 p.m.
Please note that these meetings will be streamed live via the district’s website only. They will not be aired live on FiOS or Optimum TV channels . The webcasts of the meeting will be available via the district website, usually within 48 hours.
FEMA to Survey Repeat Flood Properties – February 26 to March 26
FEMA will be surveying these repetitively flooded properties to collect data that will help FEMA understand why these structures are vulnerable to flooding and damages, and what mitigation measures may be feasible to protect them from future damages.
Click Here for the complete FEMA Notice. https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/2013FEMA.pdf
Woodward’s Not Alone – Fmr. Clinton Aide Davis Says He Received White House Threat
8:39AM Thursday
February 28, 2013
WASHINGTON — Bob Woodward isn’t the only person who’s received threats for airing the Obama administration’s dirty laundry. It seems anyone is a potential target of the White House these days – even former senior members of the Clinton administration.
A day after Woodward’s claim that a senior White House official had told him he would “regret” writing a column criticizing President Obama’s stance on the sequester, Lanny Davis, a longtime close advisor to President Bill Clinton, told WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall Thursday he had received similar threats for newspaper columns he had written about Obama in the Washington Times.
Davis told WMAL that his editor, John Solomon, “received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn’t like some of my columns, even though I’m a supporter of Obama. I couldn’t imagine why this call was made.” Davis says the Obama aide told Solomon, “that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials.”
Tri-State Transportation Campaign released its annual list of “most dangerous roads for walking” in the Tri-State Area
Febuary 26,2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Tri-State Transportation Campaign released its annual list of “most dangerous roads for walking” in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut , the annual survey of pedestrian safety for the Tri-State area found that on many New Jersey roads, walkers and motorists continued to compete for road space.
The Tri-State Transportation Campaign found that 1,200 pedestrians were killed on roads in Conneticut., New Jersey and downstate New York between 2009 and 2011.
The good news for Ridgewood was that of the nine deadliest roads in New Jersey, four were in the South Jersey , two were in the Central and surprisingly only three were in population dense North Jersey.
Pedestrian fatalities dropped in New York and Connecticut but up slightly in New Jersey. The report sites that in the last three-year stretch, 440 pedestrians died on New Jersey roads, up slightly from the 436 killed from 2008 to 2010 in last year’s survey.
file photo Boyd Loving
The report found that about 60 percent of pedestrian deaths in New Jersey were on arterial, or main roads, as Route 130, Routes 1&9 and Route 1 even though they only make up only 15 percent of roads in the region.
The next six deadliest roadways in New Jersey each having eight deaths over the three-year period, included Route 30, also called the White Horse Pike, in Camden County; Route 9 in Middlesex County, Routes 1&9 in Union County, Route 46 in Morris County, Route 9 in Ocean County and JFK Boulevard, also known as Route 501, in Hudson County .
file photo Boyd Loving
While Ridgewood has seen more than its fair share of pedestrian and motor vehicle accidents in recent years the CBD continues to offer special concerns for both walkers and drivers .Despite the best efforts by local police everyone needs to be extra careful and pay particularly keen attention driving n the Village . While on a smaller scale the CBD suffers from many of the same issues ,distracted driving, high density , low visibility as many of New Jerseys most dangerous roads.
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.
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
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.
Since most large area hospitals like HUMC participate in a PILOT program with their respective municipality , some readers think its time for Valley to kick in and other think Valley already does plenty for the community .
“Do you have any idea how many people approach Valley in a year seeking donations? 99% of them are worthwhile and important causes. But, they are a “non-profit business”, not a charity. They “donate” millions of dollars a year in free services or actual donations. However, I am sure they try to have the greatest impact with every dollar spent. While it would have been wonderful to help one girl in need and you make Valley sound heartless, if your narrative is accurate, I have no doubt that Valley must take a broader “community” view when deciding where to allocate its dollars and free services.”
“The obvious issue is that valley doesn’t pay taxes to maintain the infrastructure. If valley expands ( don’t give me this renovation BS.) The hospital will service more patients which will in turn use the infrastructure more: ( Infrastructure to include police and fire service ) . This does not come with out cost, of which valley does not pay. This has nothing to do with demonization of valley but it raises a legitimate concern of all the tax payers not just the ones in valleys back yard.”
“Valley does pay taxes for the homes they own through their foundation and also for the doctor offices through VAlley health care. They do not pay taxes for the hospital. They pay for their water and sewer.”
“Yes but they don’t pay a cent for the hospital and one can only wonder how much that would be taxed if it was mot a “non profit” (lol) and how that would help the village in comparison to the small donations that valley gives to “look good”
Real Federal Spending Up $822.90 Per American Since 2008
February 22, 2013
By Terence P. Jeffrey
(CNSNews.com) – Inflation-adjusted per capita federal spending went up $822.90 from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2012, according to official data from the U.S. Treasury and the Census Bureau.
Real federal spending also increased $2437.64 per household between 2008 and 2012.
In constant 2012 dollars, the federal government spent $3,176,376,470,000 in 2008 and $3,538,446,000,000 in 2012, according to the U.S. Treasury. (The 2008 spending number was adjusted to 2012 dollars using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator.)
On April 1, 2008 (the midpoint in the federal fiscal year which ends on Sept. 30), there were 303,381,938 people in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and on April 1, 2012 there were 313,336,712.
