If you like long term unemployment and lefty severance packages, with elected perks?then Mayor Healy is your guy. Well at least Kevin Lyons, can still benefit from his job from municipal aid to Chief of staff and continue to have a raise that was unwarranted with $14,000 raise. And now John ?Jack? Kelly, is giving his department a $5 million dollar raise ? while cutting jobs for $6 million. Where the numbers just don?t add up ? last December the number was 300 municipal employees for $5 million, and now those same employees are up for a slashing ? whereas the number has risen to $6 million for 108 employees. We can fire every employee in City Hall, and still will not balance the budget. The best way to balance the budget is to expand economic growth. Everyone knows that the best way to balance a growth in the economic structure is to increase employment opportunities. Mayor Healy and his minions are clueless to how the taxing structure is place. He doesn?t know the difference between a tax credit, a loan, and a tax deduction. He and his minions have killed every job creation plan that?s not fully owned by him. He steals ideas, and seals them off as his own?with no basic planning?or compassion to how the deal was contrived. And doing that he has single-handily broken private to public connections!

I normally don?t post on this list, and now that Healy and his minions are forcing hard working people to either move or fall into social programs?only shows that his leadership makes all political leaders look bad. Whether you?re inspiring or aspiring?elected, or appointed; Mayor Jerramiah Healy trying to out shine people is bad news. If you like high home foreclosures and high unemployment ? you can continue to put him in charge of your affairs. And in three years, every employee but upper management will be fired from Jersey City ? and the city will still not have a balanced budget. And if they do, the city would have either lost population, or have the highest cases of social services in the nation.

Cost of retirements strains city budgets

Monday, April 25, 2011
By JARRET RENSHAW
THE STAR-LEDGER

The City of Jersey City paid more than $15 million last year to departing employees, even as it cut into its police department to bridge a budget deficit. The city borrowed $9 million, at 4 percent interest, to make the payment and expects to take out a similar loan this year.

Jersey City is just one example of scores of cities and towns across New Jersey that were forced to lay off thousands of employees to cope with budget woes, while momentum for benefit reform in Trenton pushed a record number of public workers into retirement.

In theory, the exodus of employees was supposed to make municipalities leaner and provide some financial relief.

Instead, some of New Jersey's most cash-strapped cities had to pay millions to departing employees for their unused sick and vacation time, even as they struggled to provide basic services, a Star-Ledger analysis shows. The fattest checks to departing workers exceeded $200,000.

For some cities and towns, such as Jersey City, the total payouts were so big that they had to take out loans to make them.

The Star-Ledger reviewed eight municipalities that either borrowed to make their payments under a new law that allows this, or experienced high-profile layoffs last year: Jersey City, Newark, Atlantic City, Camden, Trenton, South Brunswick, East Orange and Hackensack.

In total, these municipalities paid more than $39 million last year to more than 700 employees who cashed in their unused sick and vacation time, about $54,000 per employee.

At the same time, they laid off about 460 employees, mostly police and firefighters, records show. The state does not have records for every town, but officials say they believe this pattern was repeated across New Jersey.

In Jersey City, the list of the biggest payout recipients included Jersey City Deputy Fire Chief Robert Flora, who got a $252,000 check. He was making about $155,000 a year when he retired and now collects a $108,620 annual pension. He declined comment.

Of the 188 police and firefighters who left Jersey City, 31 got checks of more than $100,000, including four who received a check for more than $200,000. In Atlantic City, 23 got checks totaling more than $100,000, including five who received more than $200,000.

"I think that's an awful lot of money to walk out the door with," said Mayor Jerramiah Healy. "I think the practice needs to be curtailed so that a mayor and taxpayers 20 years from now are not bearing the burden."

Jim Ryan, spokesman for the state Police Benevolent Association, said cities that previously benefited when employees skipped vacations to work contributed to the problem because they failed first to calculate the cost of the payouts in the rush to lay off police and push veterans to retire. The result, he says, is that departments are dangerously depleted.

"The majority of our members are on the front lines and don't benefit," said Ryan. "It's the administrators getting the big paychecks and leaving our members behind in depleted departments and without proper backup."