HomeMy Public PortalAbout1996/02/13
An Informal Meeting was held by the Mayor and Council of the
Borough of Carteret on Tuesday, February 13, 1996, 7:00 P.M.,
Council Office, Municipal Building, Cooke Avenue, Carteret, New
Jersey.
Upon individual roll call, the following were noted present:
Councilmember Deborah Bialowarczuk
" " James Failace
" " William Feingold
" " James O'Brien
" " Sam Semenza
Noted absent was Councilman Jack Fazekas.
Also noted present was Borough Attorney Robert A. Hedesh.
Also noted present was Patrick DeBlasio.
The Clerk stated that on February 9, 1996, in compliance with the
Open Public Meetings Act, a notice oftonight's meeting was sent to
The Home News & Tribune, The Star Ledger and posted on the
bulletin board
The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the 1996 Local Municipal
Budget.
Councilman Failace said that there are a couple of things he'd like to
talk about first, in open session. He spoke to Patrick last week and he
knows where we're at with the budget, what we're going to get and
what we have coming in with discretionary aid and so forth. He asked
what we are going to do with the $60,000.00 Blue Cross and the
$167,000.00 from the MCUA.
Patrick DeBlasio explained that as far as the Blue Cross and Blue
Shield, they have included in the budget a 10% or II % increase. We
have since gotten a letter that it may be down to 5%. We have some
extra money in the Blue CrossIBlue Shield account based on these
numbers.
Mayor Sica said that they are imaginary numbers right now. We don't
have a contract yet. Until we negotiate with the unions, we've got to
stick with our high number, the $63,000.00. Ifwe're going to go now
with a prescription plan, we have to have money to pay for that.
Councilman Failace asked about the MCUA money.
Mr. DeBlasio said that the only correspondence we have on that is
that the flow was reduced last year.
Mayor Sica said that is sewage money That goes into sewer surplus.
That money got wiped out the other day on the $62,000.00 to fix
Blanchard Street.
Councilman Failace asked if we have to go into closed session to talk
about contracts.
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INFORMAL MEETING
February 13, 1996
ROLL CALL
STATEMENT OF
MEETING NOTICE
PURPOSE OF
MEETING
DISCUSSION
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INFORMAL MEETING
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Borough Attorney Hedesh advised that if they are going to discuss
strategy for negotiations and its relevance to the budget, they should
go into closed session. It's their choice. It's an acceptable reason to
go into closed session.
Councilman Failace said thafhe has some things about contracts that
he'd like to talk about. He looked at some of the things and he'd like
to talk them.
Mayor Sica said that he doesn't think that it should be at this kind of
a meeting. It has nothing to do with the budget.
Councilman Failace said that some of the things do. We talked about
no salary increases. He said that he got last year's salaries versus this
years's salaries and the police go up $60,000.00.
Mayor Sica noted that it is easy to figure. There's a step in the police
contract, with the 2 cops on, that goes from $29,000.00 to
$41,000.00.
Councilman Failace said that he adjusted for that.
The Mayor said that there is longevity, a new cop, all of those things.
Patrick DeBlasio said that college credits are in there.
Councilman Failace said that this is the same thing when he sat with
them about the school board. The same thing went on, they said there
were steps. When they say that they are getting no increase, they are
really getting 2%.
Mayor Sica said that those are contracted things. We can't just
arbitrarily eliminate them. Those are things that they have. We have
to appropriate money for that. When we talk about no increase, we're
saying that we're not giving them a raise. If someone is in the 5th year
then they automatically get 4% longevity. If they are in the 10th year,
they get another 2%. As they get to these longevity steps, we can't
eliminate that. Even though we say that we're not giving them a raise,
that's theirs already. That's earned by the contract they have.
Councilman Failace said that is the same thing that's said with the
school board They have the same kind of steps.
Mayor Sica disagreed and said that it is different than the school
board.
Councilman Failace asked why.
The Mayor explained that the school board set it up with steps and
that is contracted money. What they do is say that they're only giving
a 4% raise. They're giving the top guy 4% but if you lump everything
together, they're giving 9%.
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Councilman Failace said that is the same thing that will happen here.
Ifwe give them 2%...(inaudible).
Mayor Sica said that we are locked into that. There's nothing we can
do with that.
Councilman Failace asked about new contract negotiations.
Mayor Sica said that those are things that we can negotiate but if we
don't build a budget with those things in it, if we're successful and we
get them out of there, then we have a surplus at the end of the year.
If we're not successful in getting them out of there.. .Longevity and
steps for everybody, not just the cops, for the whole Borough, we
estimate to be $50,000.00. Suppose we take a stance right now and
say that we're not giving anybody any steps or additional longevity this
year, we eliminate $50,000.00 out of there. If we lose, and we're
going to lose in court, then we built a budget with a deficit in it. Now,
we're in a lot of trouble. We could go to jail for that. i
Councilman F ailace said that he understands that
Mayor Sica added that the $50,000.00 is a wash deal. We can't
control that. That's a raise that they're going to get. He is saying that
they're getting nothing additional than what they already have in their
contract and not a penny more. Even with the cops, if we gave them
a 3% raise, their pensions are costing us an additional $200,000.00
this year. That alone constitutes a 4% raise to the Police Department.
Do you want a 4% in your pension plus an additional 3% for a total
of7%?
Councilman Failace said that he agrees 100%. He said that his own
feeling is that he doesn't think that we should be giving them a
prescription plan either. In an economy where everybody is cutting
back here and there, they should be actually giving something back to
us. If you're talking a year or two down the road, we've got the mall
coming in. We've got a lot of things coming in here. Why can't we
look for something to come back, to give us ...(inaudible).
Borough Attorney Hedesh advised them that they are actually talking
about something that should be in closed session. These minutes are
going to be open to all of the unions. It's your prerogative to pass a
resolution to go into closed session. His only question is, his problem
would be that it wasn't advertised for that.
Mayor Sica said that is the problem.
Attorney Hedesh said that this was advertised as an informal session
concerning the budget.
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Mayor Sica said that is why he said that we will have 3 people on this
negotiating team, Failace, Semenza and himself If you want to win,
the committee has got to sit down with the Borough Attorney and
write a counter proposal. For instance, they get raises automatically
because of their pensions, steps and longevity. They should compute
all of those numbers together and offer them zero. They go to
arbitration and this is our reason for offering them zero. First, we can
show economic hardship. Secondly, they are getting a built-in 4% or
5% raise by virtue of their longevity, their steps, their rank increasing,
their college credits or their pension. We're showing an arbitrator that
we'll give them 3%, then they don't get the increase in the pension.
You can't have everything.
The Mayor said that this is what he is against with the school board.
They only show the salaries of what the people are going to get but
they're not showing all of these other things. For instance, if someone
makes an additional $5000.00 this year in their pay, we have to pay
social security on them. If they put in to social security based on
$5000.00, $350.00, then we have to put in $350.00. That $350.00
is a raise to them. It's not a raise they see in the check but
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when they retire, they are securing their pension. It's still part of their
money. It's their money that they're forcing us to put in the bank for
them for when they retire. The same way with the cops. That's the
way the strategy has to be d~pe. It has to be reduced to writing and
then submitted to them with our reasoning. Now, if they want to go
and fight it, go ahead. We have to be strong enough to say that we're
not even going to listen to what an arbitrator says. We're going to be
the first ones to take it to Superior Court, to a regular court, if
necessary.
Borough Attorney Hedesh said that what is happening this year, is
that the legislature has changed the arbitration laws. At one time it
was their plan or this plan. Now, what happens is they can pick parts
and choose. If you go in just the local plan, you say you want 4% and
we're going to give you zero, you're not giving them any options.
You've got to now sit down with this arbitrator and come up with x-
amount of options. The criteria is different and everything else. Does
he think that everybody that goes to arbitration next year is going to
Superior Court? Everybody's filing a complaint to Superior Court.
Everybody will seek to overturn it because all new laws take time to
be defined. The legislature passes sit and then the court decides what
they're really supposed to mean. Everybody's going to take their case
to Superior Court and they're going to take it because they want
everybody to define the parameters.
The Mayor said that we want the court to define what a 3% raise is
Is it 3% in your pocket or is it 3% plus 4% in fringes that you're
getting automatically because we have no control over it because the
state sets the dollar number that you have to put into the pension?
Councilman Failace said that he understands.
Mayor Sica noted that it is a strategy that we have to work out. If
you look at last year's budget, you'll see that there's a number in there
of $227,000.00 that shows salary surplus at the end of the year.
That's not really what it says because the last payroll is not reflected
in there. One week oflast year plus one week of this year is in that
budget but it has to be charged against... If you look, last year's salary
account represented 8 1/2 million dollars. If you take everything that
has to come out of there, we actually had a $70,000.00, give or take
a few dollars, surplus in salary accounts. If we get hit with another
snowstorm, that's gone. If we get hit with a major fire, a hurricane,
it all gets eaten up. There has to be some latitude in there. We
finished up last year, on a 8 1/2 million dollar salary account, with less
that 3/4 of 1 % surplus. That's cutting it too close. That means that
if, in fact, we do the same thing this year.. .Don't go that we wound up
with a $395,000.00 surplus because a $395,000.00 surplus is
generated from a lot of different things of which $70,000.00 was that
money. The $395,000.00 is generated from extra revenue we collect,
the $100,000.00 we got from Bellemead. All of these things go into
that. We actually wound up with less than 3/4 of 1% surplus in our
salary account which can get wiped out instantly.
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Councilman Failace said that he is sorry for wasting everybody's time.
Mayor Sica said that it is not a waste of time. He said that he told
them that he is playing it straight with them He knows budgets as
well as anyone in the State of New Jersey. He said that he doesn't
even listen to the courts. When they said to help the cops and show
them where the money was, he refused. He told the court to show
them where the money is if they think there's money because there's
no money in there. He told them that if they think that he's good
enough to show them where it's at then they should take his word that
there's none in there and there was none in there.
The Mayor said that if you look at the steps with the cops, that's
$24,000.00. There's 3 additional school crossing guards. Last year,
we transferred a guy from Streets and Roads into the Police
Department. We've now replaced that guy in Streets and Roads
because they're short. We've got a net gain of a whole salary there.
Even though this guy went over here, it's not a wash, because when
he goes over here he gets less money. This guy gets a little bit less, he
gets more money over here.. .it's not a wash. We still are 2 cops short
in the Police Department and 3 or 4 people short in other
departments. We haven't replaced a mechanic in the mechanic's
department. He doesn't think it is necessary. We're not going to
replace him. In accordance with the 94 budget and part of the 95
budget, we reduced 1 guy there. We stayed even in all of the other
departments.
Patrick DeBlasio said that we went up 1 guy in Sewage.
Mayor Sica noted that he paid for himself already. The reason why
the MCUA is telling you to reduce your anticipated cost to us by
$67,000.00 is because last year we saved $150,000.00. They're saying
to us, ifthey really were playing fair, they are going to raise our rates
a little bit. They should be saying to us to anticipate paying to us what
you paid to us in the 95 budget, not only $67,000.00 down, because
we're over $150,000.00 savings in that department. It was a savings
last year that helped generate money into the sewer account. Another
major break... You heard it here the other night. There's parts of that
line that may go down. Granted, we're going to sue and we're
probably going to recoup that money but we can't gamble on that. In
the meantime, if the other part of the line goes down, you better have
the money to fix it. Otherwise, you have to pass an emergency. If
you don't have surplus to cover it, then you've got to go out for short
term borrowing and pay interest. Fortunately, we've never had to do
that, especially in the Sewer Department, because we've always had
back-up money there.
Councilman O'Brien asked an inaudible question.
Patrick DeBlasio said that it is $500,000.00 plus we are going to be
transferring in $900,000.00.
Mayor Sica stated that we have a considerable amount of projects that
are out there and that money is encumbered already.
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Patrick DeBlasio said that it is sitting out there to be encumbered by
capital ordinances. We have sewer surplus and we can't really spend
sewer surplus. We will have to either adopt an ordinance prior to
paying this guy [Cardell] or we have to put a line item in the budget
indicating how much this job is.
Councilman Semenza asked how much we are over on snow.
Patrick DeBlasio eXplained that we budgeted $20,000.00 and it is
used up. At this point in time, we are simply just charging the
departments that are spending the overtime.
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Mayor Sica said that is until such time as we submit it to FEMA. If
FEMA then turns around and says, here's $30,000.00, and the Parks
Department has encumbered $5000.00 worth of overtime, we'd switch
that over there. If Streets and Roads has encumbered $20,000.00 in
overtime and $5000.00 worth of material, we switch that over to
there. The Sewer Department, the Fire DepartmenLIt will be
disbursed to those departments. In the meantime, because we have no
budget, we are working on a temporary budget, it gets charged.
Patrick DeBlasio asked if he should prepare an ordinance to pay for
Cardell.
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Mayor Sica said yes. He said that he wants to use the number that
they submitted to us but that's not the number we're going to pay
because we're going to fight a little bit. We're going to save some
money.
Patrick DeBlasio said that the ordinance takes 2 readings before we
can process the payment.
The Municipal Clerk said that we will have to put an ordinance on.
Patrick DeBlasio added that it will be funded by the sewer fees.
Borough Attorney Hedesh asked Patrick DeBlasio why he wants an
ordinance.
Patrick DeBlasio said because there's nothing to charge it against right
now.
The Mayor asked if anyone had any more questions.
Councilman Failace said no but that he wants to make sure that the
Mayor understands that he wants to meet very soon.
Mayor Sica said that he will sit down at the beginning of next week
with Councilman Failace, Councilman Semenza and Borough
Attorney Hedesh. He has a copy of their proposals. He's got what
they have in their contract from last year. We're going to submit a
counter proposal. After we write it all up, we'll call a meeting for the
whole Council to discuss the proposal. We'll go through our counter
proposal to their proposal and if anybody on the Council has anything
they want to put in at that time, fine. If we try and do it with 7 or 8
people, it isn't going to get done and he'd miss crossing one "t" and
dotting one "i" and that is all the arbitrator needs
The Mayor told Councilman Failace that he anticipated the questions
he would have tonight because if he were in his shoes, these are the
questions he'd be asking. Why is there some additional money in the
Police Department? We got 3 new crossing guards. That's
$10,000.00 a crossing guard. It doesn't sound like a lot of money but
it's $10,000.00 a crossing guard. We have the steps with the cops.
We have the longevity and the college credits. College credits cost us
about $11,000.00 or $12,000.00. He said that he told every one of
the Councilmen that if they don't see his name on it, don't sign it.
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The Mayor mentioned courses he felt had nothing to do with Police
Science.
There being no further discussion, upon MMS&C, by
Councilmembers Semenza and Bialowarczuk and unanimous
affirmative vote of the five (5) members present, the meeting
adjourned at approximately 7:20 P.M.
RespectfÌJlly submitted,
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FEBRUARY 13, 1996
INFORMAL MEETING
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ADJOURNED