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HomeMy Public PortalAbout1996/05/16 An Informal Meeting of the Mayor and Council of the Borough of Carteret was held at 7:00 P.M., on Thursday, May 16, 1996, Council Office, Municipal Building, 61 Cooke Avenue, Carteret, New Jersey. Upon individual roll call, the following were noted present: Council President James O'Brien Councilmember Deborah Bialowarczuk " James Failace " Jack Fazekas " William Feingold Noted absent was Mayor Peter J. Sica. Also noted present was Borough Attorney Robert A. Hedesh. Mailed to The Home News and Tribune, The Star Ledger and posted on the bulletin board on May 14, 1996. The purpose ofthis meeting is to discuss the school board budget. Council President O'Brien asked if anyone had any suggestions. 1 Councilmember Failace said he talked to the Mayor on the phone and told him that he thought $250,000 was too much. He feels that we don't have a right as a Council, to unduly tie the hands of the Board of Education in their negotiations. He said he understood the law that was passed the other day as far as the steps go. Basically, that law only says that the teachers will not get their steps if a contract has not been signed. In the past they got them. The steps have always been absolutely negotiable. They didn't take that away. What they said was you don't get the steps if you haven't signed a contract. He said that means to him and the people he has talked to is that the teachers are more mandated to negotiate because now they are not going to get any money. They can sit back and say they are going to hold off on this and wait because they are still getting their steps. That tells him that something that is already negotiable is still negotiable. You can't get the steps until you have signed the contract. He said he didn't think we had a right to tie their hands. That's something that is negotiable and that is something that is up to them and not up to us to tell them what they can negotiate. He said he told the Mayor he would vote for $100,000 and that's it. He feels that Custodial would stay $50,000. The information he got on legal fees. He spoke to the Mayor today and all the cuts are conjecture. MAY 16, 1996 INFORMAL MEETING PRESENT STATDlENT OF MEETING NOTICE PURPOSE DISCUSSION School Board Budget ~1AY 16, 1996 School Board Budget Can't. Councilmember Failace said to say you're not going to have X amount of dollars in legal fees, maybe you are and maybe you're not, that's true. The lighting program is contractual. They have to do that. They are doing it building by building. It's an all or nothing deal. He doesn't see where you can take $20,000 from there. If you want to take the $100,000 and spread it through there, fine. He believes that there is money in custodial and clerical staff, so his suggestion to the Mayor was $50,000 Custodial, $35,000 Clerical Staff On insurance, all though we don't have the buildings we still have to insure them, not as much as we did, but the insurance on the new buildings is going up approximately $27,000. That's a guesstimate, because they don't have their new numbers coming in. Instead of $45,000, he says $15.000. So that would be $35,000 in Clerical, $50,000 in Custodial and $15,000 in Insurance. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said her suggestion is $250,000 after she looked at everything again. She's not happy with $100,000. $200,000 would be more like it. It bothers her when Councilmember Failace said we are tying the hands of the School Board. The point of the matter is the people in town are our first obligation. The people and the residents of the Borough of Carteret. How big of a hit can they take? The Council is holding to a strict budget. The tax hike to the people in town is going to be something that they cannot take. Everybody runs around saying how many houses are up for sale, well, how many more homes will be put up for sale? How many more homes are going to go into foreclosure? These are our elderly people here in town. With a $200,000 cut we are not taking away anything from the students because the fact of the matter is the students only see 20% of that budget, if they see any of it at all. 80% goes into teachers salaries. She said she has children in school and she knows what they get and what they don't get. She is appalled at the books they bring home. Obviously, the money hasn't been sunk into new books. Her daughter brought a book home on the Constitution that was so old, torn apart, black magic marker through it and this is what they are handing her. The teachers are getting 80% of that budget. Her taxes are paying for books that look like trash. The School Board simply says for the children. We are not talking here "for the children". We're talking about monies built into this budget to give out raises. Her concern is for what her children bring home and for what's in that budget that doesn't belong there. We know what's in our budget. We can sit down and explain to everybody penny for penny what is in our Borough Budget. They can't. They cannot and they will not do it. She looks at it another way also. We went to a meeting with the School Board and she found it offensive that we look like we are adversaries. If they would have put all their cards on the table in the beginning, she wouldn't be so upset as she is now about it. She feels that there has been a complete lack of honesty on their part as to why there is certain money in certain accounts. What they are doing. Fourteen people are laid- off. They got rid of every shop in Carteret High School. There's no Wood Shop, no Mechanical Drawing, nothing. That's all been wiped away. That's gone, but we upped the budget amount. It's not fair. We've got a large group of Senior Citizens in this town that can't take a $100 or $200 tax increase this year. She doesn't feel she is tying the hands of the School Board. She feels she is helping the people that she promised she would do a good job for. That she would look out for them as Borough residents and keep taxes stable. 2 That includes school taxes because when they voted it down, it comes to the Council and we are supposed to look at it and be rational about it and fair. Not to the Board of Education, but to the people who are paying taxes in this town. '-- MAY 16, 1996 Councilmember Failace said he agrees with her 100%. School Board Budget Can't. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said $100,000 is not going to help the people in Carteret. Councilmember Failace said that doesn't mean he has to agree with that number. It's going to help them half as much as $200,000. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said not half as much It should be more than $200,000. Councilmember Failace said he didn't see anybody else go there, but he went to the School Board to get the numbers months ago. ' Councilmember Bialowarczuk said she had all the numbers and she doesn't have to advertise that she has them and she doesn't have to tell him. She said he wrote his letter that we were all new at this, well, she is not new at this. She went through it all last year. Councilmember Failace then asked Councilmember Bialowarczuk why when he asked for a meeting with the Finance Committee.... Councilmember Bialowarczuk said he is doing exactly what she knew he would do. Councilmember Failace asked if that was why she didn't want to come up with any recommendations to him. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said she didn't have to. She said her loyalty is to the people of the Borough of Carteret, not him. Councilmember Failace said does she mean to tell him that as a member of the Finance Committee she doesn't have to...... Councilmember Bialowarczuk said he says one thing in one place and he does something some place else. Councilmember Failace asked what she meant by that. He had no idea what she is talking about. Evidently she doesn't. Councilmember Bialowarczuk said she knows exactly what she is doing and always has. Councilmember Failace said she is telling us that we are allowed to tie the hands and go in.. 3 Councilmember Bialowarczuk said that has nothing to do with it. The people said NO. Councilmember Failace and Bialowarczuk had some words. At approximately 7:15 P.M., Mayor Sica was noted present. MAY 16, 1996 School Board Budget Can't. Mayor Sica asked Councilmember Failace ifhe had a proposal? Councilmember Failace said he did. Borough Attorney Hedesh asked if he had where he wanted to cut and if he had the account numbers. Councilmember Failace said he would find them. He said: Insurance - 1100026520 $15,000 Custodial- 1100026100 $50,000 Clerical - 11000240105 $35,000 Mayor Sica asked Pat Crilley if two more people retired last night? Mr. Crilley said yes. A teacher and a Vice-Principal. The Vice-Principal was the one that was being moved down. He said both were actually moving down. Mayor Sica asked if the were going to be replaced or eliminate those positions. Mr. Crilley said he wasn't sure. He assumes they have to be replaced. Mayor Sica asked Councilmember Failace if he was proposing $100,000 in cuts. Councilmember Failace said yes. Mayor Sica said he didn't understand how he arrived at $100,000 in cuts when they know for a fact that 15 people are being laid-off automatically. Forget about their money, per se, just their fringe benefits aren't reflected anywhere in that budget. If you take $7,500 for hospitalization costs and times it by 14, you're talking about a considerable amount of money. Councilmember Failace said he went through it over and over. Mayor Sica said there is no way you're going to see that difference in the premium cost unless you see the premium. They put an arbitrary number in there for hospitalization. Just like we do. We don't know exactly what that hospitalization cost is going to be until they give us our run factors. The same way with insurance. We are talking about $15,000 reduction in insurance. When, in essence, we have a lot less of a liability there. We know for a fact that they are negotiating like we did. That's one of the suggestions he made to them last year. Let's start looking at these insurances. Let's start getting other agencies in here, not lock ourselves into one and negotiate. They are going to get premiums that are considerably lower. The risk factor is considerably lower. One year we had 7 schools in the risk factor, counting the one on Terminal Avenue. The next year we had 6 schools in the risk factor. This year we are only going to have 4 schools in the risk factor. Our liability 4 is cut by one third He is not saying if there premium the year before was $327,000, that you are arbitrarily going to take $108,500 as a decrease. That's not going to happen. Somewhere along the line there is going to be a savings and not $15,000. Cutting $15,000 is not even the increase they put in there. Councilmember Failace said right. Twenty Seven in there. Mayor Sica said there is $27,000 in there on top of $327,000 bringing it up to $354,000. If you eliminate your risk factor, there's a lot more money in there. The reason he is asking for these three line items is because, he guarantees it, when negotiations come up we are going to see raises given and this is one of the three areas that money is going to come from, in addition to other areas he explained the other night. Councilmember Failace said he knows they talked about it. Mayor Sica said the thing is he would not cut one penny out of this budget, if the Board of Education is willing to commit to using their savings to better the High School. To do the repairs to the High School that are necessary. We can't get that commitment. Councilmember Failace said he agreed with the Mayor 100%. Mayor Sica said if that be the case. If they are not willing to make that commitment, and this is for publication, we have committed to a zero increase in our budget and he defies anyone to show him where there is money in our budget to give anybody a raise There isn't. The only way people can get a raise in this city is if we lose people. If we have to decrease the employment. That's the position the Board of Education should be taking. As the New Jersey Supreme Court just hold, he economic conditions change. The incentive rates, the increment raises cannot be given ten years in advance, because the economic conditions change. In the city ofCarteret the economic conditions have taken a nose dive. He doesn't mean by lack of bringing in new industry because no one has been more progressive than the city of Carteret in the past three or four years in bringing in new industries and jobs. He is saying the econOlnic conditions have changed because the per capita income of the citizens of Carteret is far lower than what it was. He said a guy came the other day, in church, asking him for a job. He sent him out for a job and in order for him to get ajob he has to take a $13,000 cut in pay. That's all that's out there. What about that poor guy. He can't make it on what he is making now. He said he was looking at something very interesting in the paper. He asked if they knew what we pay the town librarian? He said we pay her dirt cheap, like forty some thousand. Do they know what the High School Librarian makes? Over $70,000. He talked to one of the priests from the parochial schools. They operate one of their whole schools with one janitor. They operate their whole school with one secretary. They operate K-8 with 8 teachers based on 250 students. If you take 8 teachers based on 250 students, the public schools have 10 times the amount of students that the parochial school has. It should be 80 teachers He is not saying they can do with 80 teachers, but maybe we could do with a lot less than 200 and some teachers. He said Councilmember O'Brien is in a parochial school. 5 Councilmember O'Brien said he was. He said he understood where the Mayor was coming from in regard to teacher's salaries. There is not a person on this list, including janitors and clerical that did not make more than he did in a parochial school. He has been there for seven years, but he chose to teach there The School Board is autonomous. He doesn't see how the Council can tell them how to negotiate. MY 16, 1996 School Board Budget Con't. t1AY 16, 1996 School Board Budget Con't. Councilmember O'Brien said have a right to negotiate any way they want. If we cut steps we are tying their hands. Mayor Sica said we are not telling them how to negotiate. We are not cutting the steps. We didn't do it. He asked where he got that from. One of his suggestions was based on the Supreme Court decision that specifically stated that economic conditions change and nobody should be able to bind a School Board's hands. Negotiating on a year to year, two year or three year basis in order to meet the economic changes whether they be up or down What they did is they tied their own hands. The Supreme Court has now given them the ability to go back to those teachers and tell them the economic conditions in the city ofCarteret have changed so drastically that the $5,000 or $6,000 raise this year is economically not possible based on the per capita income the community is able to pay. Councilmember O'Brien asked if one of the suggestions Monday night was to cut $100,.000 out of the steps? Mayor Sica said that's correct. Councilmember O'Brien said that is something that is negotiable. Mayor Sica said fine. Negotiate it down that way. Councilmember O'Brien said if we tell them we are cutting $100,000 out of the steps, we are telling them how to negotiate. Borough Attorney Hedesh said that is the intent of the statute. They can negotiate, but the Governing Body has the right to give them the tool. You have the power of the purse. That was the intent of the statute. Mayor Sica asked the Borough Attorney to research if in fact, they reduce the budget and the School Board appeals it to Trenton, or if they attempt to take out courtesy busing, then the city of Carteret, we have not struck our budget yet and it can be revised, should be prepared to step in and take over the courtesy busing. As an expense to the city. He thinks we can do it. Councilmember Failace said that is what Edison is doing. Mayor Sica said the Board is trying to use that as a club over our heads. We are going to take that club away from them and tell them the city will pay for courtesy busing. Just like we pay for the school crossing guards. That's a direct function of the school, but we pay for it. We can pay for the courtesy busing. Then that club is taken away from the Board of Education. They went all around to the parochial schools telling them that if we take any money out of the budget, they will eliminate courtesy busing. That is not our intent Our intent is to limit the amount of money that can be given out as raises, because as we sit here and tell our employees that the public no longer can afford to pay this kind of money, the Board of Education should look at it the same way. 6 Councilmember Failace said he is hoping that is the way they are going to go. Mayor Sica said live in hope and die hopeless. Councilmember Failace said he understood exactly what the Mayor was saying. Mayor Sica said this cuts going to happen. He said if his numbers are correct and that insurance bill comes in $50,000 less, does he think they are going to leave it there and say to the citizens next year not to worry they have $50,000 they are not going to spend. That's not going to happen. Councilmember Failace said they are sitting with $70,000 in surplus now. Mayor Sica said it's obvious that there is a lot more surplus in the budget. He said Mr. Failace is saying there is $100,000 that he is willing to cut that they didn't say was in there. He said if $100,000 is what the Council's feelings are, that is what they will look at tomorrow. Or, maybe he will have other suggestions tomorrow. Borough Attorney Hedesh said if anybody has any suggestion for tomorrow to please tell him. Mayor Sica said he wanted a legal opinion on taking over courtesy busing. Borough Attorney Hedesh said he won't be able to get that for tomorrow. Mayor Sica said okay. He feels that he is on firm enough ground to make a statement that ifthey eliminate courtesy busing the city will pick it up. Borough Attorney Hedesh said the city can pick it up, based on what he has read regarding Edison. He said if somebody has other proposals to get them to him. He is leaving tomorrow, but will be in his office in the morning. Upon MMS&C, by Councilmembers Failace and Bialowarczuk and unanimous affirmative vote of the full Council present, there being no further business or discussion, the meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:25 P.M. Respectfully submitted, ~...-. c. 7 t1AY 16, 1996 School Board Budget Can't. ADJOURNED MAY 16, 1996 INFORMAL MEETING 8