Here's when Jersey City offices will be closed

Monday, December 07, 2009
Jersey Journal

City of Jersey City furlough schedules:

The Administration, City Clerk, Health and Human Services, Housing and Economic Development, Office of the Mayor, Public Works and Tax Assessor's offices will be closed Dec. 24, Jan. 15, Jan. 22, Feb. 5, Feb. 22, March 12, March 19, April 5, April 23, May 17, May 28 and June 11.
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The Law Department and Municipal Courts will be closed Dec. 24, Jan. 15, Jan. 22, Feb. 5, Feb. 19, March 12, March 19, April 9, April 23, May 21, May 28 and June 11.

The Recreation Department will be closed Dec. 24, Dec. 31, Jan. 15, Feb. 5, Feb. 17, Feb. 24, March 24, April 5, April 9, May 10, May 28 and June 7.

MELISSA HAYES

Unions push back against temporary layoffs of Jersey City employees

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy has proposed temporary layoffs, also known as mandatory furloughs, for city employees (except fire and police) for 12 days over a six-month period starting on Christmas Eve and ending in June in order to deal with a budget gap of somewhere between $40 and $70 million. There are also plans for 200 employees for permanent layoff along with the temporary layoffs.

However, city employee unions are fighting back as indicated in letters sent recently to Healy, the City Council and other city officials by Jersey City Municipal Employees Local 245, Jersey City Public Employees Local 246, and the Jersey City Supervisor's Association, which represent the majority of municipal workers.

The letter from the Local 246 President Chuck Carol said the city should withdraw the temporary layoff policy altogether or decrease the number of days as the employees he represents earn an average salary of $31,000.

Carol also said in the letter that the layoffs save very little money for the city and "drastically impact the delivery of essential city services."

Local 245 said they are willing to accept one day a month temporary layoff while the Jersey City Supervisors Association said the temporary layoff proposal is "not acceptable in its present form."

Both Local 246 and the Supervisors Association wanted responses to their letters by Monday. - RK

Tough scenario for city budget
Cost-saving measures considered including possible layoffs

by Ricardo Kaulesssar
Reporter Staff Writer

The Jersey City municipal budget is usually an issue that comes up months into the fiscal year, which starts July 1 of the previous year and ends on June of the current year.

Usually, officials in the city?s financial office start doing a draft budget early in the fiscal year to get a general idea of how much revenue the city has to collect to meet operating expenses and other obligations. But in Jersey City, it is often months into the fiscal year before a budget is introduced and approved by the City Council, because local officials must wait for state grants and local revenues to be received to shore up any shortfall.

But already there are concerns by city employees that the severity of the city?s budget deficit in a bad economy could lead to measures to create a stable budget such as cutting of jobs and ending of various city programs and initiatives beneficial to residents.
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Jersey City has a projected $42 million structural deficit.
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This situation was supposed to happen a year earlier but Jersey City government was saved by the state?s one-time fiscal gimmick of allowing municipalities to defer up to half of their employment pension payments to the state. Jersey City saved $14.8M, allowing for the City Council to pass the $474 million budget in May.

Mayor Jerramiah Healy alluded to the city?s future fiscal woes in his inaugural address in July when he said he ?asked? the directors of the city?s various departments to cut their departmental budget by 10 percent, including usually untouchable entities such as the Police and Fire Department, and reiterated the city?s continuing policy of no overtime and a hiring freeze of non-uniform personnel.

So far in this fiscal year, the city has instituted a voluntary furlough system for city employees.

And more controversially, in July, the City Council voted at a special meeting for a preliminary municipal tax levy of $170 million, so property tax bills will be sent to residents for the third and fourth quarter of this calendar year before the 2009-2010 fiscal year budget can be struck. That meant municipal property tax went up 11.25 percent, which incurred the ire of residents attending that meeting and angry letters to local papers as well as postings on websites.

Business Administrator Brian O?Reilly explained at that meeting that the increase of the tax levy was also to get more ?cash flow? into the city?s coffers to start the new fiscal year, as there is a projected $42 million structural deficit.

Suggestions for a balanced budget

However, an unnamed city official with over 20 years experience said there?s already talk of asking directors to slash up to 20 percent and finding other ways to skimp on essential services such as the Fire Department no longer employing full-time firefighters as part-time fire inspectors, who make sure buildings and other structures are up to code.

Another unnamed city employee with 10 years on the job said the Healy administration is looking at implementing mandatory furloughs and then layoffs if the situation becomes direr.

This employee said the layoffs would start with seasonal employees, or employees hired for a particular time of the year, followed by provisional employees with a few years experience but do not have a civil service title that prevents them from being laid-off or fired without recourse.

The employee?s suggestion is for Mayor Healy to look at letting go campaign workers hired for city jobs during and after this year?s mayoral campaign season, and then move on to other employees.

And then there is City Councilman Steven Fulop, who has no problem going on the record about the Healy administration?s inability to tackle budget problems with immediacy. Fulop usually has voted at past City Council meetings against approval for temporary appropriations to keeping city operations afloat in the interim before the municipal budget is struck.

Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.

Hernandez's statement can't possibly be true. For managers "in the aggregate" to be contributing a greater percentage, they (managers) would need to be making at least 20 times more than their subordinates, given the ratio cited and an assumption that there are at least three subordinates per each manager (and hopefully there are many more than that.)

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What I would be interested to know is for a particular situation and for a given amount looking to be saved, how many days would a manager or higher up have to be furloughed to save the same amount realized for the furlough of a lower paid employee?

While the secretary may have to go 10 days without pay, a manager (who can better afford the loss of pay) may have to go on furlough significantly fewer days to realize the same savings and make it easier on the lower paid employees who can least afford the loss of pay.

Right on, Yvonne. The mayor and his administration's unwillingness to comply with state law on the budget process is, I think, the biggest slap in the face they give us. Without a budget there is no accountability - just a big, fat "trust us." Well, do you trust them?

It is now October: Mr. Healy, Mr O'Reilly - you owe us accountability!

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Are you kidding I knew of a few that worked for the city and they made less than $25k and still do. Not all is green as you may think.

NJCU workers decry unequal furlough days

Thursday, October 01, 2009
By SARAH RAHMAN
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Emotions ran high at a meeting of union members at New Jersey City University yesterday as rank-and-file employees griped they are being forced to take up to 10 furlough days to deal with state cutbacks while managers have to take only two.

Nancy Gomez, branch president of Local 1031 of the Communication Workers of America, called the discrepancy "unfair."

Her members must take 10 furlough days between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010; while members of Local 1839 of the American Federation of Teachers - the other union present yesterday - have to take seven days.

The furloughs are a result of state-level negotiations between the administration of Gov. Jon Corzine and state union leaders.

But that fact didn't make Gomez go easy on NJCU President Carlos Hernandez.

"I understand it was mandated by the state, but he (Hernandez) should have gotten our input. If you have any consideration for your state workers, you should at least sit down and listen to us," Gomez said.

Ivan Steinberg, an associate professor of economics at the college, and one of about 200 people at the meeting, said a "war" has begun over the imbalance in furlough days.

Hernandez said yesterday he didn't have to impose two furlough days on managers at the Jersey City state college, but did so anyway.

"Quite honestly, we could have met our definition of salary savings with no furloughs of the managers," Hernandez said. "In the aggregate, managers are contributing more in a percentage way than the unit members are."

Joseph Moskowitz, president of the AFT Local 1839, which represents approximately 650 employees at the school, wasn't buying that argument.

"How can someone take just two furlough days but have your secretary take 10? How can you do that to a person?" Moskowitz said to thunderous applause.

Healy does not need the money, got enough of the bribe money stashed away that his people took. Also with the shitty job Healy is doing as Mayor he should not even be getting paid. To bad his pay was not based on performance.



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FrGuidoSarducci wrote:
By Amy Sara Clark/The Jersey Journal
September 29, 2009, 6:40PM

Mayor Jerramiah Healy will take a voluntary pay cut, spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.

North Bergen, quoted an article I had on my web site, www.speaknj.com/ The problem is- that December 2008 article is last year's budget. Jersey City is on a fiscal budget year but it never starts the budget process until the year is over. The fiscal year ended June 30, 2009. That December article written by Ricardo Kaulessar of the Jersey City Reporter, concerns last year budget which started July 1, 2008 and ended June 2009. The budget was finally adopted May 2009. We are now in a new fiscal year July 1, 2009 which ends June 30, 2010. I am hearing from varying sources, the city has a $70 million deficit. This is why taxpayers received a 11.25% increase even though the budget was not adopted. I believe more increases will come soon. Part of the problem, our city has never adopted a timely budget even though we changed fiscal years in 1991 and bonded $128 million to cover a loss of state aid that year.
Yvonne

Furloughs and layoffs were a solution employed by Healy's buddy Cory Booker in Newark. Did you know they were such good friends? From BCB today:

"I?ll get it out of the way up front: politics makes some strange-ass bedfellow. But even the most seasoned pol watchers have been scratching their heads over the friendship that has developed between Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy. While it may seem hard to believe that the 40-year-old, suburban-raised Rhodes Scholar and Stanford and Yale grad (Booker) could be buddies with the 60-year-old political insider who grew up on the streets of Jersey City and got his J.D. from Seton Hall Law, both men say their friendship is real."

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Yeah, those abatements are really doing the trick....

No place in this region has seen the unprecedented amount of investment, building, etc. that JC has over the past 20 years.

How the city finances are so absolutely frigged up is all you need to know about the greed, incompetence and corruption we are ALL paying dearly for.

A reval is NOT going to clean up this mess.

At a certain point, you have to look at your personal bottom-line, how much you are paying out and what kind of city services you are not getting and the slobs who are not providing them, all the while lining their own pockets and decide that maybe it's time to cut your losses and get the hell out of here.

Seems like they should do whatever they can to keep property taxes from going up.

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Bloated staff salaries???? The average worker makes 25k to 30k a year.

O'Reilly's budget and mandatory furloughs.

In April 2008 Jersey City Business Administrator Brian O'Reilly explains the financial aspects of running Jersey City. As Business Administrator he oversees the budget and the hiring of municipal personnel. Watch as he reads his job description. Salary - $153,171

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbQOtMz3fAI

December 2008 article in Hudson Reporter.

Brian O'Reilly explains why there is no budget ready for the City Council. O'Reilly quoted the City's debt to be $18 million. O'Reilly said 'we might be able to have no tax increase.' O'Reilly supported giving a $2.5 million no interest loan to the Liberty Science Center. O'Reilly said there is a hiring freeze except for police and fire personnel. Read it here.

http://www.speaknj.com/No%20municipal ... et%20%20December%2021.pdf

Today, September 30, 2009 the City's debt is $74 million. This represents $56 million more debt within 9 months. Today, O'Reilly introduced mandatory furloughs and a 9.2 pay cut for City employees. O'Reilly says the decision to mandate furloughs came after City employees did not respond to the voluntary furloughs like he hoped they would.

Today, September 30, 2008, City employees presumably hope that O'Reilly stuck to his statements in December 2008, that there is a hiring freeze except for police and fire personnel.

They probably hope that O'Reilly isn't sticking them with a pay cut after signing off on unnecessary new hires during this period.

They most likely hope that O'Reilly can get back the no interest loan given to the already state funded Liberty Science Center.

They reasonably hope they will be able to afford their property taxes and monthly bills after this mandatory furlough while O'Reilly drives home to South Jersey in a car paid for by them.

They feasibly hope that in the future O'Reilly's predicitions of City tax debt include better math.

They plausibly hope to hear how many voluntary furlough days were taken by him.

They doubtlessly hope to know how he oversaw a deficit rise from $18 million to $74 million while he gambles with their pensions.

They conceivably hope that he might consider a pay cut from his own $151,171 salary before he lays off a blue collar employee who makes one fifth ($30,000) of his personal income. All in theory, of course.

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I might agree if the $2 million saved would have otherwise been directly injected by those workers into the local Jersey City economy. But in my understanding, that's not how the economics work in this case.

Economic downturns are the not the time for the government to straighten out its bloated staffs and staff salaries; that is only further contributing to the pull back in consumer spending as more people are sent to unemployment rolls, or in the case of furloughs, balancing household budgets with less income.

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Most non-uniform City workers make very little money. The big salaries are in Police and Fire. Add in overtime and the uniform services make up 80% of the City's salaries.

Brian O'reilly goes ahead and a hires the 20 year old daughter of a city employee Sabrina Harrold at 35,000 a year to work in his office when the city is under a hiring freeze and is forcing mandated furloughs.

When i read things like this i thing; finally govt workers are taking as big of a hit as the average worker. If you really delve into it, they arent at all. The NJ Govt worker is the highest paid, as the most generous package of any other public employee system in the US. Its better than most private sector jobs, and finally its coming back to bite these ppl.


take a look at this current serious about NJ taxes;

http://www.app.com/taxcrush

By Amy Sara Clark/The Jersey Journal
September 29, 2009, 6:40PM

Jersey City is introducing mandatory furloughs after a voluntary furlough program introduced over the summer flopped.

The furloughs will apply to department directors, but not to elected officials, although Mayor Jerramiah Healy will take a voluntary pay cut, spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said.

All non-uniformed workers will work 12 fewer days between Dec. 24 and June 30 and receive a 9.2 percent pay cut for that period, city Business Administrator Brian O'Reilly confirmed today.

The days will be chosen by the city, not by the individual employees, as mandated by the state in the case of mandatory furloughs, O'Reilly said.

He added that the city will try to be as accommodating as possible by picking days right before holidays, such as Christmas Eve, or Mondays and Fridays so employees will have long weekends.

The decision to mandate furloughs came after just 51 employees signed up for voluntary furloughs. Those approximate 220 days -- or 4.3 days per person -- saved the city between $40,000 and $50,000 O'Reilly said.

"I was hoping it would be a lot better but apparently we didn't get the response we wanted," he said.

The city has a budget gap of more than $40 million due to rising pension and healthcare costs as well as several one-shot revenues in last year's budget -- such as $15 million from the court settlement with Honeywell, $15.8 million in pension deferrals and $9.8 million from other land sales.

O'Reilly said the furloughs will save the city a little over $2 million.


Layoffs, he said, are still on the table.

The city would try to eliminate seasonal and provisional employees first, and would try to protect the positions of officers that raise revenues, such as health and building inspectors, O'Reilly said.