Fantastic !
The Healy administration are systematically being called to account for bribes, fraud and other criminal activity, with abatements to developers and a siht load of condo's being constructed and the population of JC growing we are going to cut services and staff.

Anyone last check the ratio of police to population of JC over a 10 year period - While you're checking, see what the ratio of staff at City Hall providing services to the community is - Don't be shocked when you discover that our services are crap and smaller, while cityhall is collecting double the taxes from new JC residents moving in and tax increases from existing JC residents !.

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Pretty laughable when you consider Viola has been rubber stamping most of the Healy agenda for years.

A constraint she could put on herself is not taking her City Council salary. Given that she already gets a County salary and a Police disability pension. Somehow, I don't think she'll make the sacrifice though.

Jersey City council cites $80 million deficit in voting to change budget cycle

Published: Wednesday, August 04, 2010, 8:01 PM Updated: Wednesday, August 04, 2010, 8:09 PM
Melissa Hayes/The Jersey Journal

Despite the skepticism of residents, Jersey City will shift from a fiscal year to calendar year budget cycle to buy time to close an $80 million budget deficit. Just a few weeks ago city officials said that gap was at about $56 million, but tonight council members confirmed that the figure is much higher.

Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano, a member of the council?s budget committee, said changing the budget cycle and adopting a six-month transitional budget for the remainder of this year would give the city time to make cuts and close the gap.

?I think this is an important thing we?re doing to give us the ability to make decisions intelligently,? he said.

Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson was the most critical in her remarks.

?We have been totally out of control,? she said. ?We have been spending more than we bring in. We need to take a harder look and put some constraints on ourselves. I think that we need to have a budget on time.?

The city traditionally adopts its budget just months before the fiscal year is coming to an end and all the funds have been expended.

Richardson was also critical of the use of furloughs, or temporary layoffs, questioning whether closing down some departments cost the city more in loss of revenue.

?We need to do some more serious cutting and it?s not those little people who were furloughed and cut because that?s not even a drop in the bucket,? she said.
City officials have said 12 furlough days save about $1.5 million. The city also laid off all of its seasonal and part-time workers in February.

The city council voted 7-0 tonight on an ordinance to change its budget cycle. Councilwoman Willie Flood and Councilman Mariano Vega were absent.

The council also set to vote on a six-month transitional tax levy of $97.15 million, which would raises taxes on the average homeowner by $20 a quarter.

Residents that spoke during a public hearing on the ordinance reminded the City Council it was merely buying time and still needs to balance the city budget.

John Seborowski suggested the city look at combining departments to eliminate directors.

?When financial times were good it might have been possible to fund political patronage positions without a burden to taxpayers,? he said. ?Times have changed.?

He said if City Hall were a business with the names of City Council members on the marquee, they would expect a balanced budget on time.

Resident Yvonne Balcer blames politics and the affordable housing and tax abatements on new waterfront buildings for further burdening the average taxpayer.

?The Gold Coast is the city of mismanagement and every mayor that comes in does the same thing as the previous mayor and add on their own,? she said. ?The city has a serious job to do, they have to really start cutting.?

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While I think there is a lot of truth to what you say about the city and its political climate, I think Fulop has made more inroads than people think. All you have to do is look at the results of the school board elections to get a sense of how he's doing citywide.

The Carol Lester results are most telling - she got roughly 3,000 more votes than the three "downtown" candidates who got smoked the year before. Carol was a tireless campaigner, is a wonderful person and a great addition to the board but it's hard to imagine she'd have had that level of success on her own.

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I doubt that, look back into the last century when former gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler was elected Mayor...3 times! He appealed to all the seniors from all sections of J.C. He had a grass roots effort and plenty of voters appreciated Bret's approach. As far as the cops & firefighters are concerned most of the cops are from out of town so their vote are moot, I think the fire dept. has a 50-50 chance of influence.

I think Fulop eventually has the best chance of making something happen but he'll be limited to Downtown JC. If he's serious, he'll need to make inroads into other neighborhoods.

I think Levin is too caustic and has made more enemies than Fulop so he has absolutely no chance. That said, Jersey City is still an old school town where if you can't make friends with cops and firemen, you'll go nowhere fast. Neither of them have scored any points in that department.

The majority of the JC electorate seems to prefer status quo over innovation so as much as I want change, I feel that areas outside Downtown will go for the beer and hot dog candidate. It's hard to get enthusiastic when you know you're gonna lose.

This website is becoming all-about fiscal irresponsibility and quasi-corruption... yet, this ain't no movement... mostly griping and info-sharing.

We have to get our ducks in a row... whether through Fulop or Levin/One JC or a Hudson Cty Republican party (hahahaha!)... this town will never make it when the HDCO is at the switch.

Cops, fireman and school administrators (and their pensions) are bankcrupting municipalities all over this country. Jersey City is no exception. Take a look at how much these fat cats made in 2009.

2009 JC Police and Fire Dept. Salaries

Jersey City council to vote on six-month budget, whether to change the budget cycle

Published: Tuesday, August 03, 2010, 8:35 AM Updated: Tuesday, August 03, 2010, 10:26 AM
Richard J. McCormack/For The Jersey Journal

Jersey City Business Administrator John "Jack" Kelly is asking the City Council to consider moving from a fiscal year to a calendar year to give the city more time to get its financial house in order.

Jersey City officials are moving ahead with plans to change the budget cycle in an effort to buy time to close a budget gap.

The City Council is set to vote tomorrow on a $97.15 million tax levy that would cover from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2010 and would hike taxes by about $20 per quarter for the average property owner, as reported by Melissa Hayes in today's editions of The Jersey Journal.

The city currently operates on a July 1 to June 30 fiscal year.

But facing a $56 million deficit, Business Administrator John "Jack" Kelly has asked the City Council to shift to a calendar year budget. The council introduced an ordinance to make the move July 14 and will hold a public hearing and vote on adopting the change tomorrow.

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Great question - here are a couple more:

- Will the personnel running the academy actually be let go or reassigned? The majority of the cost of anything the city does is personnel, so closing the academy and reassigning the people would really end up saving very little.

- It is my understanding that the city was training officers from other cities - cities that didn't have academies of their own. Were those cities being charged only at cost or was this actually a revenue generator? If a revenue generator, has that lost revenue been accounted for in the "savings" the city will realize by closing the academy?

I assume Jersey City will still have to pay someone to train its police officers. Is the $1.3M the net savings to close the academy or just the cost to run the facility?

They need to go after the big costs - salaries, pensions and health insurance. If they reduced the health benefits significantly, they could probably cut the deficit in half. But someone is probably getting a kickback from a health insurance company to keep the insurance the way it is.

it is interesting - private sector has been moving away from pensions for the past 10 years....

alternate retirement plans/programs (like a 401k) give appropriate flexibility to contributing entities (corporations, gov, etc) and make the individuals more responsible for their retirement - you truly get what you contribute.

I guess we should not be surprised that government (esp. JC government) is behind the curve.

finally someone else on here who gets it MUST move to defined contribution...

The city is sunk unless something is done about pensions. The city should privatize everything possible (including the fire department) to get out of the pension trap. Any new hires that work directly for the city should be on a defined contributions plan only.

Where are the cell phone pictures?

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They need to cut alot of the guys who work for the JCIA. The last few days I saw the white van with a enclosed grey trailer behind the hudson mall, the driver was in the driver seat sleeping. I went past there like an hour & a half later & he was still knocked out.
This was about 10am.
I tried calling the jersey journal so they can see this & have a decent news article but no one answered.

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Sounds like a good start to me...except for the silliness of changing calendar years. (Remember the City that decided to call 11 months a year...and thus balance the annual budget?)

Jersey City is hamstrung becasue Bret Schundler has already sold off all the city assets...cannot do it twice.

There are too many cops doing nothing, too many firemen lifting weights and making lunch, and too many administrators getting in one another's way. Libraries have too many librarians and too few books.
Let administrators take public transit instead of city cars to lunch!

Dump 25%-50% of them, the city cannot afford such waste.

Jersey City looking to close Police Academy, cut employees and vehicles; may switch budget from fiscal year to calendar year

Tuesday, July 13, 2010
By MELISSA HAYES
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Jersey City is looking to eliminate its Police Academy, reduce its work force and vehicle fleet, and institute more furloughs to close a multimillion-dollar budget deficit.

City Business Administrator John "Jack" Kelly detailed the plans while asking the City Council yesterday to move from a fiscal year budget to a calendar year budget.


Kelly said the shift would buy the city more time to deal with a $56 million deficit.

Kelly proposed the city adopt a "transitional" budget for the remainder of this year rather than setting a fiscal year budget to cover July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. Then early next year, the council would adopt a budget for 2011, he said.

"It is not a panacea," Kelly said. "It will give us time to get our financial house in order."

Traditionally, the city adopts a budget with only a month or two left to its fiscal year. Kelly has explained that he wants the city to adopt a budget early in its budget cycle and to live within those means.

Kelly noted yesterday that the city sends out estimated tax bills because the Hudson County Board of Taxation operates on a calendar year and the switch would cut out one mailing and save the city $50,000.

But Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop said the city is only putting off dealing with its fiscal woes and asked what the city plans to do over the next six months to close the gap.

Kelly responded that the city is looking to close its Police Academy for a savings of roughly $1.3 million annually. In addition, the city is also developing furlough and layoff plans, re-examining its rental agreements, and looking to reduce its fleet of vehicles, Kelly said.

Kelly said the city would receive extra aid to switch to a calendar year budget. But Lisa Ryan, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Community Affairs, said yesterday that changing budget cycles would not affect the total amount of state aid the city would receive.

The city switched from a calendar year to a fiscal year in 1991 after a transition period in 1990, to match the state's budget cycle.

Gerald McCann, who was mayor at the time, said yesterday the city moved to a fiscal year to have a better idea of state aid allocations.