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New trucks for snow removal, upgraded voting machines and background checks for school-bus drivers are behind some of the cost increases in the county budget, members of the Board of Freeholders learned Tuesday during departmental hearings on the proposed spending plan for 2016. Todd South, The Record Read more
MAY 18, 2015, 4:43 PM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015, 6:48 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
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The Bergen County freeholders have identified just over $1 million in cuts they want to make in the $531 million 2015 budget submitted last month by County Executive James Tedesco.
The proposed cuts are spread across several departments. An exact breakdown was not immediately available.
The cuts may be partially offset by an addition to the budget. The freeholders want to increase spending on the Bergen County Cooperative Library System by $125,000.
A formal introduction of the budget is expected expected later this month.
Tedesco proposed a budget that calls for a 1.7 percent increase in county taxes. That would translate into a property tax increase of $12.73 for a home assessed at the county average of $324,000.
Sheriff Michael Saudino told the freeholders that folding the County Police into his department will save the county nearly $2 million through retirements. The freeholder board approved consolidating the two agencies last year after several years of debate.
Prosecutor John Molinelli told the board that he plans to hire seven former County Police officers to fill vacancies for investigators within his office.
The county will save about $730,760, Molinelli said, because money for those salaries is already in his budget. The savings are based on the presumption that the Sheriff will not fill the vacancies in his department left by the departing county police officers.
Molinelli said four of the seven new hires will continue as members of the regional SWAT team, but they will no longer receive an extra stipend for that work.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen-county-freeholders-id-over-1m-in-cuts-to-budget-1.1337274
Bergen executive assails Democrats’ budget plan
JUNE 23, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JUNE 23, 2014, 1:21 AM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan delivered a blistering critique of the freeholders’ proposed 2014 budget, contending it will leave the county up to $3 million in the red starting early next year.
But Freeholder Chairman David Ganz disputed Donovan’s numbers and contended the board’s $507.6 million budget will deliver real relief in the form of a slightly less than zero tax increase.
The debate signals the extent to which the normally humdrum budget — scheduled for a final vote on July 9 — has become a hot topic during this year’s election, in which control of both the Freeholder Board and the County Executive’s Office is at stake.
Donovan, a Republican running for a second term, contends that in order to slice $6.8 million from the budget she proposed in March, the freeholders are tapping into funds that can’t be replenished next year.
“They’re raiding all the funds and taking the money out, which is very imprudent because next year, even if you’ve got the money in, you can’t spend it,” Donovan said during a Record Talk Radio interview on Friday.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/donovan-assails-proposed-budget-1.1039779
