The world hasn't ended since I last posted something of substance. Indeed today I am reverting to a potpourri of unrelated but to me significant items.
My virtual cap is off to the mayor of an area community which may be Lebanon but I do not remember. As reported in the Courier, I believe on Thursday, he refused to let his municipality take advantage of the 50% deferral in the pension plan payments as proposed by the Corzine government. The mayor called a "Ponzi scheme". While it may not be a true Ponzi type operation it does postpone at an increase cost the payments that are needed to keep the plan solvent.
Of course financial honesty never has bothered any politician whether it be the Democrats or the Republicans ala Whitman when it come to jiggling figures so that they look good and do not have to face the piper.
When it comes to finances how many noticed that Citigroup claims to have posted a large profit this past quarter. The old adage that figures don't lie bur liars figure could not be truer.
What Citi did was to forget the first month of the quarter of the their fiscal year, December when they had a tremendous loss for which the government has allocated to them billions of dollars. Instead the quarter they reported started in January. Nobody has ever denied that innovated financing is not a profitable enterprise. How many Ponzi plans have surfaced in the last few months?
Circuitously this could lead us to the City's 2010 budget since there is little more innovative figuring that can be done to our yet as not passed 2009 budget for the year ending two months and two weeks from now. The New Jersey Courts have upheld the validity of mandatory furloughs for State, County, and Municipality employees to meet budget crisis.
Will Plainfield's Administration and Council have the guts to use such draconian measures, or layoff clerical workers? Perhaps some accommodations must be made in the police and fire divisions to prevent any more short staffing then that which has occurred over the last few administrations. A serious look at the Police Department where despite expert recommendation's the n umber of top level officers has increased in the past few years. Having multiple divisions instead of charging a smaller group with more responsibility may be fine but not if it results in an unbalance ratio of brass to grunts.
I noticed when I received my current PMUA bill that it was the same as the first quarter one, That raised a question, has the recently approved rate increased not been implemented a sod now, or did the PMUA initiate the raise before the public hearing? I am confuse d, are you?
Anyhow that caused me to review of my PMUA bills that I could find for the past 6 years. The statements show the following charges and breakdown. While there could be a variation in water use as represented in the sewer charge it would not be significant and the garbage portion should be static. What is of interest is that although 2005 through 2007 the rates were stable for each of the past two years there has been an annual increase around 20%. Certainly the 65% increase from 2003 is much more than the rise in the cost of living, and astronomical when compared to the Social Security's COLA adjustments.
YEAR---TOTAL ---- %+---GARBAGE----%+-----SEWER-----%+
2003 ---213.52-------------115.67---------------------97.85---------
2005 ---237.96----1.44%---133.02-------15.00%----104.94---10.31%
2006 ---244.32----2.67%---133.02--------0.00%----111.00----5.77%
2007 ---246.44----0.00%---133.02--------0.00%----113.42----2.18%
2008 ---291.99---18.48%---159.65-------20.02%----132.34---16.68%
2009 ---353.29---20.99%---191.45-------19.92%----161.84---22.29%
6 year -------------65%-------------------- 65.51%-------------- 65.40%
(I have not taken the time to learn how to transpose an excell document to the post)
Apparently,the public outrage is justified. Perhaps the Authority should publish the annual total reimbursement received by its top officials and Commissioners.
My innovative spelling of Saturday in yesterdays post bypassed my hiatus "proof reading". It can happen to all of us, but shouldn't.
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Doc,
ReplyDeleteThe PMUA increases were with the first bill of the year, despite the fact that the rate changes were not approved until the end of the January (they billed us retroactively at the new rate for the first 20 or so days before the new rates were voted on).
This is one of the big reasons behind the lawsuit against them that was filed by the person running the DumpPMUA website.
You have to remember that fuel and disposal costs are also up. The survey that was sent out should give ideas on how rates can be stabalized. You have to admit that the city is cleaner now.
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