AT LAST POTPOURRI TODAY

5 months after the 2010 FY budget was supposed to be introduce, tonight at 7 pm the Council will begin its first formal hearing before making alterations to the Administration's proposed budget which was finally submitted shortly before Thanksgiving.

If past experience is a guide as to the context of this years work of fiction the ultimate product will have little resemblances to what is on the table today.

Preliminary reports give the impression that cost control measures consist solely of eliminating unfilled jobs thereby saving zero dollars from a non expense. Also there is the proposal for eliminating up to 15 positions. With the exception of 3 these are all in low level jobs. The rouge 3 is the Planning Division and hiring outside consultants at supposedly $100/hr for perhaps 2 half days a week as a replacement. At the last Council meeting many speakers questioned the rational of such a move and the veracity of the figures including estimate savings.

The presented budget of which I do not have a copy, but I believe that I heard a figure of $4.1 mil hoped for State aid. If this is so then there is no way Dasheild's document can possibly represent a living community's financial operations. Especially since in today's Ledger the paper states the the state is considering withholding the $20.7 mil of town aid due today. That represents approximately 5% of the total amount ($450Mil) authorized under the"Consolidated Municipal Property Relief Act". When Plainfield gets its claim in there maybe be zilch available.

Since Administrations approach has been please, there are no projected savings through givebacks , furloughs or partial assumption of insurance costs, voluntary salary reduction, or elimination of administrative positions where functions can be combined with those of another job. It is time we returned to a honest day's work for an honest day's pay.

Council is going to make hard unpopular decisions, but that is the price of authority. Thus they should take thee time even if our working budget is no it place before March. We have a mess and it needs the effort that in previous years our government hid out of site.

We will have no knowledge of how bad things are until we have an independent audit. World wide experiences has shown that ling term contracted auditors forget to be impartial and over look practices the may be just faulty but could be fraudulent. I think that the financial sloppiness of the past few years could raise that possibility

While on the subject of financial weirdness, read the latest about the Connolly properties in today's Courier. At the end of the article a reference about the monies owed the PMUA in which the Attorney for Connolly, Trenk, states that Connolly proprieties are willing to allow the PMUA to hold lien sales o the properties owing $400,000. in sewer charges. After the last listing of lien sales covering 3 pages I didn't know that the property owner had the right to give permission. Is there a contract clause which we are unaware?

I expect tospend some time tonight at the budget hearing although without any documentation I shall be in the dark.