Residents Voice Budget Concerns in Public Hearing

Members of the public were offered the chance to weigh in on Barnegat’s proposed 2011 budget at the Township Committee meeting Tuesday, and several residents expressed concern over school debts and frustration with the budget process itself.

Frank Pecci said that since so little of the township’s budget proceedings were public made it difficult for residents to understand what’s being paid for and how.

“We’ve come up with numbers, but nobody knows how we’re arriving at those numbers at all,” he said. “It’s like we don’t want anybody to know what’s happening. There’s a lot of areas in that budget I’m not too thrilled with, to say the least. But I don’t get an explanation, because you don’t have the time to go through this whole budget.”

Jake Taylor agreed.

“Some years ago, when the township budget was put together there was input from the taxpayer,” he said. Each department had an itemized budget that the public could easily review, said Taylor, but now, it’s much harder to total up a single department’s expenses.

For instance, he said, some police department salaries show up under the Department of Emergency Management. Taylor said he thinks it’s too complicated a system.

“I have many questions on this budget, but it’s ridiculous to bring them here,” he said. “You’re telling the people of Barnegat that this is what you want to spend, and there’s nothing that I or anybody can do about it. You don’t have the proper participation informing that budget, and until you do, the public is excluded.”

Deputy Mayor Al Cirulli said he and the rest of the committee take public input seriously and have listened to the comments that have come before them. The township doesn’t have much control over the way the budget is organized, he said.

“That is the standard and correct form from the state, and we just couldn’t eliminate that,” he said. “This the way the state wants it.”

Phil Checchia said the township must take into account the likelihood of further lost revenue due to home foreclosures in the near future.

“You’ve got to get the projection of foreclosures in this town,” he said, and assume that they will increase sharply this year.

Pecci also expressed concern over the impact of the township school district’s looming debt obligations. Both said the township should be concerned about debt service it will owe on loans from the New Jersey Schools Development Authority – loans they said the community was led to believe amounted to “free money” from the state for the construction of new schools.

The issues might be in the school budget, said Pecci, but as the custodian of funds for the township, the committee has a responsibility to consider the burden facing taxpayers.

“We’re going to get pounded by principal and interest,” he said. “You’ve got to estimate the costs.”

But committee members said school budget issues have nothing to do with the structuring of the municipal budget.

“I understand what you’re saying,” said Mayor Jeffrey Melchiondo, “but that doesn’t belong here.”