John Newman, Council Spar at Freehold Borough Budget Hearing

Tensions ran high at the Freehold Borough Council meeting Monday night. Residents packed the meeting room at Borough Hall for a public hearing on the $14.76 million 2011 municipal budget—a vote on which was postponed because of a technical change in how the state requires library spending plans to be presented.

However, the charged discussion came from the dais rather than the public floor. Councilman John Newman, the governing body’s lone Republican, read from a prepared statement outlining potential cost saving measures, many of which he said were ignored or delayed in their implementation by other members of the council. Newman cited the creation of a citizen advisory group as one example.

“In the first few months after being elected, I proposed a citizen budget advisory committee. Despite immediate approval from the mayor and council, the matter was not placed on the agenda for eight months,” Newman said.

During his public statement, Newman also proposed cuts or consolidations to the municipal court; a reduction in council members’ pay; eliminating night code enforcement inspections; a 10 percent cut to the other expenses portion of department budgets, excluding the police department; and 50 percent cut to the Shade Tree Commission budget.

Other members of the council disputed Newman’s statement that his input on the budget had been ignored. Councilman George Schnurr, a member of the Finance Committee, said the first time he heard of some of Newman’s objections to the 2011 budget was in his letter to the editor to the News Transcript.

“The Finance Committee is designed to be a collaborative effort, not for any one person to remain silent for months on end and then for purely political and partisan purposes keep the proposed changes all to themselves until after the budget is finished and after its offered for adoption,” Schnurr said. “If anybody had ideas on how to reduce spending, the time to present that would be at the Finance Committee where the real work is done.”

Schnurr noted that while he believed a number of Newman’s proposals had merit, he was disappointed to first hear of them at Monday’s meeting.

Councilwoman Sharon Shutzer took issue with Newman’s recommendation that the senior citizens holiday party should be eliminated. Neman charged that the event has been used as a campaign platform for Democrats.

“Everybody at this table will tell you that I have fought to keep politics out of the senior citizen issue. I would be willing to bet the senior citizens with whom I work every month would not be able to tell you whether I am a Democrat or a Republican,” Shutzer said. “Some of those senior citizens have no family, some of them have nothing except their daily existence. Anybody who has been to our holiday party can tell you for many of [the seniors] that is the highlight of their year.”

The Borough Council is expected to vote on the municipal budget, which will be supported by an $8.86 million tax levy, on Monday, May 16 at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall. The tax rate under the proposed budget includes a 3.1-cent increase on the municipal tax rate, bringing it to 82.2 cents per $100 of assessed value.