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Jersey City City Council adopts $490 million 2011 city budget, with no tax increase
Published: Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 9:03 PM Updated: Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 9:04 PM
By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal
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With only 95 days left in the year, Jersey City finally has an adopted $490 million city budget, one that officials say comes with no tax increase.
The City Council unanimously adopted the spending plan tonight, more than six months after it was introduced. The city delayed the process as it waited to close a $15 million land deal, and they delayed it again when the land deal fell through two weeks ago.
Until last year, the city had worked under a fiscal year budget that ended in June. This year is the city’s first with a calendar-year plan.
Though city officials have been criticized by residents for taking so long to adopt the spending plan, Council President Peter Brennan said tonight he doesn’t think the delay caused anyone harm.
The budget was mostly set in stone in March, when the council first approved it, Brennan said.
Brennan praised Business Administrator Jack Kelly for delivering the budget, and he lauded the city’s labor unions for accepting flat increases, work furloughs and other “givebacks.”
“We made up $80 million,” he said, referring to the budget gap the city had been facing. “There was a lot of work by a lot of people to close it.”
Councilman Steve Fulop, while voting to approve the spending plan, nonetheless expressed “serious concerns” about it. One-time budget gimmicks, Fulop said, will only delay the pain.
“We’re set up for massive tax increases next year,” he said.
According to the budget adopted tonight, the city will need to raise $215 million through taxes. City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said about $6.4 million of that is for the local school district, leaving about $208 million for city purposes.
Last year, the city collected $210.6 million in taxes, Morrill said.
More than 700 N.J. police officers who lost jobs cannot find law enforcement work, survey finds
Published: Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 6:25 AM Updated: Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 7:49 AM
By Alexi Friedman/The Star-Ledger
NEWARK — There was no safety net for Kaisha Perez when she lost her job with the Newark Police Department late last year.
A 29-year-old single mother with two young children, Perez spent the next seven months collecting unemployment after she and 162 fellow police officers from the three most recent academy classes were laid off as part of an effort to close an $83 million budget deficit.
Perez held out for a job in law enforcement and now considers herself among the fortunate few. In July, she and seven other laid-off Newark police officers were sworn in as Essex County Sheriff’s officers.
But she is the exception. Throughout New Jersey, a total of 705 police officers laid off since January have been unable to find work in law enforcement again, according to a survey conducted by the State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, the state’s largest police union. The survey includes all officers, not just those represented by the union.
Like the thousands of other New Jerseyans laid off in the crippling economy, the officers have struggled to pay their bills, taking on part-time work like truck driving, plumbing and private security, said PBA president Anthony Wieners.
Municipalities forced to lay off officers are still financially strapped, he said. "There’s nobody hiring, and if they are, it’s very sporadic."
FEAR OF RIOTS
This month, Trenton laid off 105 of its city police officers, a third of the force. Police forces in other economically depressed large cities have suffered a similar fate. In Camden, more than half of the 93 total officers laid off earlier this year haven’t found new jobs in law enforcement, said the local police union president John Williamson.
Last month, Williamson sounded an alarming tone by warning of possible riots in the streets if more officers were not rehired. Williamson said he stands by those words today. "This is not fear mongering," he said. "Based on my observations and history in the U.S. and in the world, where people feel desperate and impoverished, they tend to let out their frustrations."
William Roberts, who was laid off last January with 167 other officers in Camden, is still out of work.
Roberts, 41, who spent five years on the force, is collecting unemployment, hoping to return to the job. "I really love that city and working for the city police department," he said. Roberts believes he will be among the first crop rehired, but knows there is a limit to how long he can wait. "I’m going to have to decide relatively soon whether to apply to other police departments, or, even go to Home Depot and apply as a stock boy. I’m just not at that point yet."
In Paterson, only a handful of their 125 officers laid off in April have found police jobs, according to state PBA figures. Atlantic City police appears to be the only bright spot; it hired back 57 of the 60 officers laid off last year.
"It’s indicative of how bad the economy is that more of these officers haven’t been able to find jobs," said James Stewart Jr., vice president for Newark’s Fraternal Order of Police. "There aren’t too many cities that wouldn’t otherwise welcome these fully-trained men and women in the prime of their careers."
Newark police, by far the largest municipal force in the state with 1,100 officers, applied for a grant in May to hire back 50 officers. The department should find out next month whether the application was approved, said city spokeswoman Anne Torres. On Monday, the city announced it would hire four police officers through a smaller grant.
In nearby Union County, meanwhile, five local police departments recently swore in 17 previously laid-off Newark police officers. The Union County Sheriff’s Office picked up four others as did the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office. New Jersey Transit Police has hired two officers and another is now a federal air marshal.
Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said his new hires will need little training, and have the added benefit of living in and knowing the area. He added, "the volume they handled as police officers, the contact they had with the public, I think that’s an advantage."
Before this year, Fontoura said his office was under a nearly three-year countywide hiring freeze. After losing 35 officers this year to retirement, the sheriff’s office has hired about 20 new offocers to bring the force up to about 400 officers. Fontoura said he plans another round of hiring in November.
Another new sheriff’s officer, Tare Richardson, had cast his net as far as Atlanta in hopes of landing a police job.
"Every day I woke up, I kept my faith something good would happen," he said. Despite a bitter battle in the weeks leading up to last year’s layoffs — which pitted police against the city and new officers against their veteran counterparts — Richardson, 26, said he harbors no ill will. "It was a blessing in disguise. I’d rather look at it like that," he said.
Since last year’s layoffs, many now ex-Newark officers are still sending out their resumes, while taking on side work, union officials said. Several have become UPS drivers. Others are now Newark special police officers, part-time employees who provide law enforcement services to city agencies.
One such officer, who insisted on anonymity after being instructed not to speak with a reporter, described "a love-hate relationship with the city. I love the job, but I hate the way we were treated," he said.
The officer is still hoping to get hired back, and may get that chance because all laid-off police officers receive priority consideration for any new round of hiring, even the ones who have found new employment.
Perez, who as a sheriff’s officer is now assigned to prisoner transportation, said she would decline the offer for her old job back if asked. "I’m in the field I want to be and I’m still making a difference," she said.
Stewart, the union vice president in Newark, said laid-off officers with now stable jobs who might consider a return to the Newark police should instead follow Perez’s lead.
"Honestly, I hope they never look back. I hope they never come back to the city of Newark, where apparently we’re going to be in this kind of situation for the foreseeable future," he said. "Who knows what next year’s going to bring?"
Related coverage:
• Trenton police layoffs mean fewer feet on the beat
• Mass Trenton police layoffs take effect as officers lay down boots outside headquarters
• Camden struggles with lack of manpower due to police, firefighter layoffs
• Newark finalizes 167 police layoffs after union refuses Booker's plea to return to negotiating table
© 2011 NJ.com. All rights reserved.
$20.8M grant allows rehiring of 78 police throughout N.J.
Published: Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 6:49 PM Updated: Wednesday, September 28, 2011, 5:49 AM
By Star-Ledger Staff
Less than a year after a statewide budget crunch forced police departments to enact large-scale layoffs throughout New Jersey, a federal grant will allow 78 cops to reclaim their badges and guns next month, half of them in crime-plagued Newark and Camden, officials said today.
Roughly $20 million was awarded to 12 New Jersey towns through the Department of Justice’s COPS hiring grant today, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.). The bulk of the money will go to Newark and Camden, where more than 300 officers were laid off in 2010, prompting widespread fear of crime spikes in both cities.
"This funding will help make sure we have police on the beat and keep families in New Jersey safe from crime," said Lautenberg, a member of the appropriations subcommittee that awards the COPS grant. "State and local budgets are stretched thin and this funding will give Newark, Camden and other New Jersey communities a helping hand to put police officers back on the job."
The news was met with a collective cheer by police unions and city leaders in Newark and Camden, two factions that spent most of the past year bickering in the media and at the negotiating table.
"That is absolutely outstanding, that’s the best news I heard today," said John Williamson, president of Camden’s Fraternal Order of Police, the city’s largest police union. "Let me tell you, we could use every single boot on the ground and officer we can get."
Through the grant, the Department of Justice will pay the salary and benefits of the returning officers for three years. In 2014, the cities will have to absorb those costs and maintain the number of cops rehired through the grant, or risk being deemed ineligible for the COPS program in the future.
Newark Police Director Samuel DeMaio said the grant couldn’t come at a better time, as cities prepare for the traditional holiday season crime surge.
"I’m extremely happy to get any officers back," he said. "Obviously we were hoping for the maximum possibility, which would have been 50, but it’s a great thing for us to have 25 officers coming back on the job especially with our new holiday plan and the holiday season coming up."
The breakdown of grant distribution to New Jersey's police departments is as follows:
• Asbury Park Police Department, 5 officers, $1,610,840
• Buena Borough, 1 officer, $223,173
• Burlington Police Department, 2 officers, $642,164
• City of Camden, 14 officers, $3,794,966
• Irvington, 8 officers $1,986,472
• Little Egg Harbor, 2 officers, $595,568
• Long Branch Police Department, 4 officers, $1,518,388
• Millville Police Bureau, 4 officers, $1,171,476
• New Brunswick Police Department, 7 officers, $1,682,807
• Newark, 25 officers, $6,028,700
• Vineland, 5 officers, $1,242,680
• Westampton, 1 officer, $282,793
By James Queally and David Giambusso/The Star-Ledger
© 2011 NJ.com. All rights reserved.
Braun: Newark's violence points to cop layoffs, breakdown in values
Published: Monday, August 01, 2011, 8:10 AM Updated: Monday, August 01, 2011, 8:30 AM
By Bob Braun/Star-Ledger Columnist
Acting Newark Police Director Samuel DeMaio and Mayor Cory Booker appear at a press conference last month.
John O'Boyle/The Star-LedgerA
Latest Memorial Fund Research Bulletin
2011 Mid-Year Officer Fatality Report
A total of 98 federal, state and local law enforcement officers died during the first half of 2011 (January 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011), according to preliminary data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. This represents a 14% increase over the 86 officer fatalities during the same time in 2010. Firearms-related fatalities reached a 20-year high, increasing 33% from 30 to 40 officers shot and killed in 2011.
Read the full Preliminary 2011 Mid-Year Officer Fatality Report.
Read the Preliminary 2011 Mid-Year Officer Fatality News Release.
| Total Fatalities: Mid-Year 1961-2011 |
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Recent Research Bulletins
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IAPSNJ exclusive interview with PFRS Chairman John Sierchio
(click here to download the PDF transcript)
POLICE AND FIREMEN'S RETIREMENT SYSTEM (PFRS)
http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions/pfrs1.shtml
Senate Bill 2718
Establishes certain criteria for public employee health care benefits plans; requires premium percentage-based employee contribution.
Archived 07/26/2010 Toolkit (click here)
Archived from 09/14/2010
The month of September in Trenton moved at warp speed with pension and benefit reform bills that will affect our profession if and when it passes both in the Senate and Assembly. The 33 bill "tool kit " proposals are currently being discussed in both chambers sub committees. On September 13, 2010, a Senate committee unanimously moved forward S 2220 that sets caps and freezing accruals for employees already over the limits. This bill is expected to pass the legislature and eventually signed by the Governor. A previous proposal authored by Joe Kryllious (R Middlesex) would have limited all current employees to pay outs of $15,000 regardless of days already saved up, was considered unconstitutional said Se, Paul Sarlo ( D-Bergen). Below, please find a link to the S-2220 in its entirety.
Fraternally, JCPOBA President, Jerry "Dewey" DeCicco
Click below to download the NJ S2220 Bill from the JCPOBA website:
http://jcpoba.com/sites/default/files/NJ_BILL_S2220_09132010.pdf
