Ridgewood explores three options for 2013 budget
Thursday January 31, 2013, 4:09 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
The Ridgewood Council will explore at least three different options and consider the recent findings of a volunteer finance committee as it begins discussions on the 2013 municipal budget.
Village Manager Ken Gabbert presented preliminary figures to the governing body Wednesday night to illustrate separate spending plans: one that represents a 1.1 percent budget increase over last year, another showing a zero percent budget increase, and a third that would potentially deliver a zero percent tax increase.
“We started the [2013] budget process with the departments back in October. What’s been done differently is that we went back for an extra round with the departments in accordance to the council’s direction,” the village manager reported. In December, council members instructed Gabbert and his staff to construct a number of budget options for presentation in January.
The 2012 village budget totaled more than $45.2 million, while the average Ridgewood homeowner shelled out approximately $3,900 for each municipal tax bill last year. A proposed total budget amount for this year was not used at this week’s council work session, as several influencing factors are still unknown.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/189257631_Ridgewood_explores_three_options_for_2013_budget.html
The Tiger report offered a lot more options than the three proposed by Gabbert. Just because the village departments have already made requests for the 2013 budget doesn’t mean we must proceed with the status quo. A zero % tax increase in 2013 is simply a stop gap measure. Shouldn’t we stop and rethink what we are doing, in light of the issue that were highlighted in this report?
Or, are Gabbert and the Village Council going to just ignore the report and push through the same old policies?
all I know is some dept’s are down to the lowest amount of worker’s in 100’year’s. In the street dept they used to have 27 worker’s in 2000. now they are down to 7 worker’s. all other dept’s have been replacing worker’s. how in hell can this dept keep up with all the work that need’s to be done on a daily day. send it all out is not the answer. the price of that down the road will be big money. and the village is stuck with no d -p-w. this is a joke. and yet we the village have a paid fire dept. can any tell me what is the over time in that dept. wake up council.
The Pd roster has dwindled from a high of 52 to a current 40 members, the town was supposed to hire 4 but they only 2. The last state police report says they should have 56 men. Last I heard rwd had lowest cop per resident in bergen county.