A Candidate’s Blog: Transcript Three

[Disclosure: This blog is written from my perspective as both a candidate for a seat on Gloucester Township Council and as a concerned citizen of Gloucester Township with questions and concerns about reckless spending and business as usual in Gloucester Township]

In my last blog, “A Candidate’s Blog: Transcript Two,” I reported that Gloucester Township’s debt amounted to $44 million dollars. This information was, in fact, based on an answer provided by our township business administrator to a citizen’s question at a recent GT council meeting concerning GT's debt. Township business administrator, Tom Cardis, stated GT’s debt was $44 million dollars. If anyone would know, he would…that’s his job.

A local citizen responding to my blog questioned me about that number because he had looked at the GT “Annual Debt Statement” and came up with the following:

$20.1M Debt for GT Public Schools
$21.4M Debt for BHPRSD
$61.1M Debt for Gloucester Twp
$102.6M TOTAL

For GT's debt, the Statement shows:

$37.9M Issued Serial Bonds
$9.1M Issued Bond Anticipation Notes
$10.4M Bond Anticipation Notes-Not Issued
$3.7M Issued-Misc Bonds, Notes, Loans
$61.1M TOTAL

That annual debt statement is posted on the Gloucester Township website and can be viewed or downloaded here.

Depending on how you read this, in other words, whether you include school debt or not, GT’s debt comes in at either $61 million or $102 million dollars. It seems that Mr. Cardis understated GT’s debt by quite a bit; either 39% or 133%. Which is it?

Now, for an individual being paid to keep our books, that kind of miscalculation is quite significant. One would wonder whether that was an honest mistake or whether the number $44 million was meant to mislead. I have heard individuals at council when questioned state that additional time would be required to check facts before an accurate answer could be provided so Mr. Cardis would have been well within the realm of acceptable practice to ask for time to come up with an accurate number.

I wish to give Mr. Cardis the benefit of the doubt so I invite Mr. Cardis, any member of council, or the mayor to respond to this honest question about our debt and provide the people of Gloucester Township with the transparency that was promised by Dave Mayer.

To anyone who will answer: What is your statement as to the amount of GT’s debt and if it differs significantly from the number provided by Mr. Cardis in council, what caused the disconnect between the stated and the real numbers?

See you in November.