WHOA

Square wheels give a rough ride. That seems to be Plainfield's fiscal policy, bump bump..

Today's Courier's article claims that the city is planning to defer pension plan deposits in order to decrease the citizen's tax burden. Any plan that will limit taxes is fine but not one which according to a quote attributed to City Administrater Deshields will add a minimum of $600,000.00 for the next 30 years or 18 million dollars weighing down future tax payers.

My math is probably wrong, but if the city liability for pension deposits every year is 5.5 million dollars and to get under the mandatory cap raise limit we need to cut $3.2 to avoid "major layoffs" the proposed plan would only save 2.75 million this year. This would still leave almost a half million shortfall this year alone at the expense of the future. This would mean that salary economies are still required.

The statutory limited 4+% tax raise-city portion of the tax bill only-would still take place. No one is accounting for or taking responsibility for the boo-boo in the proposed tax that is costing the tax payers $1.6 million this year. The finance director became the whipping boy, and probably rightly so. However there are two administrative levels above his position that must share responsibility.

It would seem to me that even though this is a mayor and assembly election year a concentrated drive must be made to restructure wages/salaries and work loads in order to prevent "major layoffs" by bringing the budget into a workable level.

I am also so naive that I can't believe that the reason we do not have a budget after 8 months into this fiscal year is that we must wait for the State to announce how much "extraordinary aid" we will receive. That is like counting on winning the lottery for living expenses.

The 2009 FY budget should have been adopted, perhaps including a provisional item although that is bad practice. When exact numbers become available the actuality is accomplished by amending the working budget.

No innovative number crunching or depleting mandatory paper surplus can substitute for sound fiscal management. Unrealistic staffing, employee contracts, hiring of Consultants, with or without Council approval, who fail to deliver and a rubber stamp Council are not signs of a quality administration.

There are signs that this Council will seek fiscal responsibility. Let us hope so.