Tiger Team: Take Away facts about the Village
January 17 2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
REPORT OF THE FINANCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Top 3 municipal expenses: Public Safety, Insurance and Pension & Social Security have increased at an annual rate of 6.0% since 2001
Pension & healthcare benefits for Village workers are exempt from the 2% cap.
Village management has made overly generous promises on compensation, pensions and healthcare
Ridgewood’s annualized property taxes, have increased at a compound annual rate of 5.6% since 2001
67% of Ridgewood Firefighters (28/42) have base salaries over $100,000 (2011). The median for Ridgewood was $118,290.
80% of Ridgewood Police (33/41) have base salaries over $100,000 (2011). The median for Ridgewood was $128,239.
Pension & Social Security will surpass Public Safety by almost 12% to become the largest budget item in 2018
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%.
In 1980, the portion of Ridgewood property taxes related to the Village budget was $5,526,000.
https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/2013FinancialAdvisoryReportFINAL.pdf
Come to Ridgewood the streets are paved with gold just ask the village manager.
Police & firefighters have contracts. Can’t go back and change the terms.
At least not until the contracts expire. Then it will likely be a very different world for these employees, who have benefited from overly generous contracts for years. Taxpayers are finally waking up to the impact of budgets that they approved , but did not understand for many years.
No, the the schools are lined with gold just as Dr Fishbine and the Ridgwood Board of Ed. 220 k is not enough.
The residents who volunteered their time and expertise to investigate and prepare this report deserve a lot of credit and thanks from all. The report examined facts and compiled statistics driven by the information they discovered. Unfortunately the current Village Council is saddled with the task of correcting the sins of prior Council’s. This will not be easy and it will likely be painful for both employees and residents alike as Village services will likely suffer cuts in multiple areas.
The report seems to offer ideas that do not reduce village services. In fact, there are many aspects of village life that may be improved by restructuring the village organization and procedures to make them more efficient.
#3 If you factor in that the governor is given a multi million dollar mansion,helicopter, limo with driver then it is possible that Dr. Fishbine is under paid.
He is not underpaid, based on the job he performs…that is the bottom line.
Is it that hard to be a cop in Ridgewood? Life in the line of fire etc? Mean streets!
In 1995 the rwd school budget was 46 millin dollars today ill bet the budget is over 90 million close to 80 cents of every tax dollar goes there why not start where the real problem is
The school budget is important. But, taxpayers pay for 100% of the property taxes. So, everything needs to be examined. This group was only asked to look at the municipal budget. Perhaps the outcome from their recommendations will lead to similar efforts with the BOE. We can only hope…
Please don’t touch the BOED budget until my kid finish school and I can move down South
I can’t wait till they build the apartments so I can get my cousins a good education. Thanks Paul and Al I will make sure they vote for you in the next election
That’s right my kids don’t have live there. We just have to make sure that all the paperwork comes back to that address in Ridgewood and they can go to the public school then catch the train or the bus back home. Truly a Transit Village.
But dont you dare touch the holy grail ( the bd of ed ) in fedreral politics social security has always been the 3rd rail of any politcal career. In local politics education is the same thing. Beating up on cops, and garbage men, or street workers, never really stirs up too much controversy, but start pickin on the school system and all hell breaks loose.
hey tiger team . you better get all the right info on what you are talking about. and for numbers get 2013’s not some bull shit report from village hall that was done ten years ago.
p s just keep a look out on the coin room. that room pay’s a lot of bill’s.