>Village Council Set to Discuss Personnel Reductions during Open Public Meeting
Village Council members are scheduled to discuss “2010 Budget – Personnel Reductions” during their next scheduled Work Session. This meeting, open to all members of the public, will be held in the Sydney V. Stoldt, Jr. Courtroom at Village Hall beginning at 7:30 PM on Wednesday, March 24th.
The Ridgewood News’ website (www.theridgewoodnews.com) is reporting that Council members are planning to lay off 26 union employees. However, unconfirmed reports are that the total number of lay offs will exceed 30.
Targeted employees are said to include members of the following Village departments: Tax Collector (entire department to be laid off), Water (1), Police (3), Fire (9), Sanitation, Streets, Building/Zoning, and Parks & Recreation. Additional departments may be impacted as well.
Last year at about this time, several residents cautioned Council members that excessive spending on such projects as the Vets Field bathrooms, parking garage studies, Schedler property purchase, Habernickel Park upgrades, and Graydon Pool studies could lead to budget shortfalls in 2010, which might result in lay offs.
Let’s just wait for Wednesday and see if Council members try to blame all of their budget problems on the loss of State of NJ aid. What do you think?
