>In a report recently delivered to Ridgewood’s Mayor and Council, Village CFO Dorothy J. Stikna publicly recently revealed that salaries for the Village’s police and fire employees are expected to rise at the rate of 4% over the next 5 years, while salaries for other Village workers are expected to increase at the rate of only 3% during the same period.
During her prepared remarks, Stikna offered no solutions for keeping the salaries of Ridgewood‘s public safety employees in line with those of other VOR workers. However, it is rumored that some members of the Village Council have privately questioned the need to retain a fire department staffed almost entirely by career personnel; especially since no other community in Northwest Bergen County has such an organization. The Village fire department’s annual budget is reportedly in excess of $3 million.
Rumors are also circulating that the Northwest Center Bergen Dispatch Center, operated jointly by Glen Rock and Ridgewood, may soon be offered for sale to the County of Bergen. With an arm of the County government then entrenched in Ridgewood, a closer look might be taken at merging Ridgewood’s police force into the Bergen County Police Department. Significant savings in administrative expenses would be realized from such a merger.
Ms. Stikna’s estimated 2006 salary was $127, 778 (as reported by www.datauniverse.com).
>I think and no that we all should be the same on the rate of pay.how come the police or fire get 4 and all get 3,that is un fare.they make more.give 4 to the little guy,and 3 to police and fire.come on what the hell does the big wigs get 10,what bs.iam sory it is un fare i like the police and fire but come on.look what a cop makes after 5years is over 100000grand and a poor town worker makes maybe 50.ooo real sadd in my book.they work hard and they need money to .the police and fire kill the budget like no one else.i think it is time to have some tipe of control on thear pay,am i worng for this.when is this going to stop.at lest a town worker saves money look at water dept..and sant,recy,we are all cheper then the out side.
>A volunteer fire department in Ridgewood! You’ve got to be kidding! The town is full of people who complain when emergency vehicles use their sirens. I can’t imagine anyone volunteering to get close to those things. The designer uniforms would be very prohibitive though. People around here do things in “ish” time. So if fires and emergencies were’nt conducted at around 1 ish or 2 ish, they couldn’t be covered. And can you imagine everyone showing up fashionably late? Christ , the fire wpould never go out, dang it. People would be coming and going to run their children to basson;soccer;cello;basketball;baseball;lacrosse, etc.. The scheduling of emergency response would be murder. Another problem would be , “who’s in charge?”. Everyone here thinks that they are in charge. No subordinates here in Ridgewood! By the time they got around to settling the chain of command, the entire village would have burned down. Then we would start with the law suits. Before the fire , everyone was in charge. After the fire, no one was in charge. It’ll take forever! We’ll have to appoint commissions to do study after study after study to no end. The lowest person on the totem pole will be indicted. The rest will drink Merlot and ask, “Whatever happened to old What’sis name?”. No one will Know (or care).
Leave the fire and police alone. New Jersey has allowed them to take as much as they can get. Sounds like they’re doing the same thing that all of our professional people here in the Village are doing.
Remember, in going after shared services, Ridgewood will always lose. The more affluent communites always pay the larger share of costs (Look at Franklin Lakes and Oakland school system, as only one example.) and received lesser value for their money. If you start to outsource Village functions, you’ll wind up with alot of high priced contract administrators sitting in Village Hall.
>why not have valley contribute a little… The fire dept. gets called on monthly drills and you would not believe how many times they have to come in addition… must be at least another one or two times a month.
>Less Than Enamored:
If you’ve ever need the fire dept., and I hope you haven’t, you’d see what a real blessing it is to have ATC workers. Can you just imagine the volunteers being called from where ever their other jobs are to go to a fire. People with little blue lights attached to the tops of their cars careening thru this town – where the people barely pay attention to the huge trucks – citizens would completely ignore the rush of these workers going to the firehouse to get the equipment. Disaster city.
>Devolving a career fire department and replacing it with an entirely volunteer fire department will be nothing short of a mess. Lets think about this. If you’re a hardworking individual that works in New York all day, who will run the calls during the day when no volunteers are around? Also, If i were this worker doing long hours at my real job, the last thing i would want to do is come home at night and volunteer at the Fire Department. Face the facts; you know its true. Presently, there are approximately 1,520 homes per square mile in Ridgewood, not to mention many of theme are huge and arent construction to modern code as far as fire safety. We also have Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. If youll notice, every other municipality with a hospital has a career fire department in their town (Englewood, Teaneck, Hackensack and Ridgewood). The one exception is Paramus where Bergen Regional is located. Overall, we are very abuntant with life safety risks necessitating a career department. I hope the Village Council looks long and hard before they ever think about doing this. ITS YOR FAMILIES LIFE HERE FOLKS!!
>Having recently arrived in this country, I can not believe you are questioning having a Fire department that can respond quickly,you build your houses out wood! You need professionals like the rest of the world (no disrespect to the volunteers, they do a great job).
Ridgewood is a great town and we should be proud of our public servants.
>KEEP THE CAREER FIRE FIGHTERS!!! Having a full time department is a HUGE reason I had for moving back to Ridgewood (over other towns in the area). I wish we had more volunteers as well – they provide increadibly important support and we need to have the best possible people in all of these jobs.
>Pascack Valley Hospital, in Westwood, is protected by an all volunteer fire department as are nearby Chilton Memorial Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital, Meadolands Medical Center, and Nyack Hospital.
>Don’t the Bergen County Police Officers make more than the Ridgewood Officers? How is that going to save any money? But if it saves money, go ahead and regionalize. Just don’t expect the same level of service delivered by the local professional Police and Fire departments.
>Hey genuises READ your tax bills. For the amount we pay for municipal services (less than 25% of your tax bill vs 75% for schools) we get a real VALUE with out Police and Fire Depts. When the need arises, I want a Professional firefighter. The RFD seems to arrive VERY quickly (get a scanner, hear the call, the sirens are almost INSTANTANEOUS). When the Police are needed, its the Same quick repsonse for serious stuff. If their pay goes up faster than we like, then THANK the arbitrators who will ALWAYS award pay based on PARITY with the latest town who made a sweet deal with the unions. Dont forget, the “Peoples Republic of NJ’ is run BY the unions, FOR the unions. We all PAY. Its not gonna end while our Gov is makin small talk with his sweetie whose the head of the largest union in the state! Another note..your homeowners insurance premiums are based on FD ratings…if we had a volunteer dept the cost for insurance would be HIGHER… while I appreciate the efforts of the volunteer depts, my former town had volunteers… we had to wait for the pickup trucks with the blue lights to race to the firehouse(hopefully not causing accidents in the process), then load up the engines and go…this extra time helped earn them their nickname…”FOUNDATION SAVERS” since the house usually burned down by the time they got there.
>NEWSFLASH!! The Ridgewood PD will NEVER merge with the county Police. It just won’t happen. The only way regionalization would work is if you merged Multiple towns together like Midland Park, Ridgewood and HoHoKus. That’s a smart merge. However..that’s not gonna happen either. As for the Salaries…Always remember..Cops and Fireman don’t get paid for what they do…they get paid for what they might HAVE to. Watch the news lately..look at all the cops and fireman that are being killed in the line of duty. Sorry, sanitation and streets and other village Depts. they do a great job but the risk of being injurd or killed is no where near as high as police and fire. Leave them alone. And if the other employees aren’t happy about the pay..take the Police and fire tests!!!
>”…merging Ridgewood’s police force into the Bergen County Police Department” … NO WAY!!! We residents have already lost our village to the huge number of outsiders frequenting our downtown area. Now you want to give our police over to Bergen County? No amount of cost savings is worth that.
Find another way to save money!!! Our Board of Education spends money like it grows on trees.
>Unlike business consolidation, mergers in government agencies don’t save money, they seem to always consolidate power, raise costs, lower service quality and make matters worse. We need to take care of this ourselfs
>All these village owned vehicles that given as perks to village employees must go ! The chief of police does not need a car ,he can drive home in a squad car ,with a $600 paint job ,what does the council think everyone is stupid…?
>It does not seem that most who have responded are in favor of a regional county police in Ridgewood or cutting back on a paid fire department. Even if these ideas could save money the our officials must consider the following: What will we save, if anything? What will be lost? Is it worth it? Will the public at large accept it? If the answers to these questions were all favorable we would alread see mass mergers. The only hard and fast “CASH FACTS” I am seeing about cost and regional services are the towns looking to leave regional school districts to save money (ie: Manchester and River Dell). Perhaps reinventing the wheel is not all it is cracked up to be?
>The paid vs. volunteer FD issue will never go away. All surrounding towns have volunteer departments and this bothers cheap guys like Harlow and Ten Hoeve. They just don’t get it.
Rear yard garbage pick up, free ambulance service, a paid FD force, curbside leaf/yard waste collection, and central dispatch will all go between now and 5 years from now. You wait and see.
>Hey fly, where do you hear your ‘rumors’? When someone posts something that you disagree with, you say its a ‘rumor’ and must be researched, and that you won’t post it. you’ve done it to me on 3 occasions where i was stating FACTS that you could read on paper from different village sources. So now you go post rumors to stir the pot?
Nice job, real factual, truthful information you are posting here.
The FD isn’t going anywhere. Central Dispatch isn’t going anywhere, and is actually expanding to cover more of bergen county. Don’t bitch that cops and fire fighters make too much, with the taxes paid in this town there should be enough money to pay the rest of the municipal employees a better salary. CUT THE BS SPENDING BY THE COUNCIL AND YOU WILL BE JUST FINE. Hire people that will do their jobs well, train them, and offer incentives. Do stuff right the first time and see how much money you save in the long run.
>no one asked about Good Samaritan or Nyack hospital you moron!! They’re out of state.
>Who really gives a crap what Harlow and Wiest think…They are two reasons this town is falling apart!!!!
>The Chief of the Bergen County Police is a POLITICAL position. Think about it.
>wow you all need to check your facts
>Grew up in Ridgewood, now live in Middlesex Cty. Can’t believe you folks stil have rear yard garbage pick up, must be the last town in NJ with that benefit.
Career FD is the way to go. There is not town in the country much less NJ that doesn’t have problems getting people to volunteer
>Well then, by the logic of some of the posters on this blog, EVERYWHERE in NJ is a dump with the exception of Ridgewood! You people should take a look around and get a reality check.
>NJ is a dump ,you got that part right
>and yes we dont want Ridgewood to follow the states lead
>11:12 PM says “EVERYWHERE in NJ is a dump with the exception of Ridgewood!” That’s right, our sh-t don’t stink.
>That’s right, our sh-t don’t stink. …more like thsi state is a pile of sh*t and some folks in Ridgewood dont want to join in
>I say merge the police department with the county police. Share the cost with the rest of the county.
>1:07 Do you want to lose control of your police department by merging with the county? The chief and his higher ups spend more time campaigning than policing. And the policing has more to do with politics than crime. I know I don’t want a police chief that gets his marching orders from a political party boss.
>Brilliant statement 9:38, typical elitist attitude. Here’s a thought – If you think our state is such a pile of s*it, why don’t you leave and improve the property value somewhere else? Two kinds of people in this world…. elitist blowhards who sit around complaining and passing judgment, and those who roll up their sleeves and do something about the problems….
>Hey 7:02 PM you would need to roll up your sleeves AND wear boots to clean up all the sh*t in this town.
>NO to merging our local police with the county. Enough with the outsiders taking over our once quaint village.
>who ever made the statement that the fd is getting 4% raises for the next 4 years, do you have a crystal ball. the fd contract has not even expired yet. having a career fd is the best way to go. at 2 am when a homeowner calls for a inch to a foot of water in the basement, who is there. most vol fd may or may not come out. the career fd is there and takes care of it. stay with a career fd, nothing against the vol fds
>Some career departments dont even pump out basements………
>Does Ridgewood have a nepotism policy?
How can the Chief and a Captain be brothers?
Someone should run for Mayor with this issue, it’s absurd that this is allowed.
>The Chief and the Captains are related.
>They were hired well prior to the nepotism policy coming into effect
>10:32AM
“They were hired well prior to the nepotism policy coming into effect.”
So there is a nepotism policy now?
Look at who works with Ms. Stikna.
Finance Department
Dorothy Stikna, Chief Financial Officer Ext. 226
Vicki Bombace, Payroll Ext. 232
If there is a nepostism policy, two out of three should leave, that’s the way it works in law firms and corporate organizations.
>if they cut something,trust me some one will be makeing out very well.dont let them bs you.
>some one is makeing some deals.o yea.what the hell is going on.hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
>they should sell town hall what a dump.and what a dam shame.all that money we could off made a new town hall,you jackass,s
>well the hole town should get the same,not one get 5, and another get 10, and some get 3,thats all bs,you make over 100000,you get 3.you make under that you get 5.and you make under 50,you get 10.and thats that my little flower,
>when is this going to stop.we cant keep paying cops all this money,some made over 150.oooo.another 5,years what the hell are going to pay them,at this time after 5,years they make 100000,grand plus ot,and some still bitch about things,.
>brothers in the same fd, it is called tradition. look at many fds acroos the country. there are fathers, brothers, sons, snd even sometimes sisters so leave that question alone. and even so, they had to take a test to get hired and or promoted. about the water pump out, mayeb some career don’t. ridgewood fd DOES