County Officials Close Budget Gap

County officials have closed a $22.1 million budget gap caused by a reduction in state aid, but taxes will increase slightly more than originally proposed.

Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. presented a 2010 budget of $713.7 million in January, but then state officials cut $22.125 million in state aid in March.

But, according to a press release, DiVincenzo lobbied the governor and $16.8 million of the state aid was restored to the county. To make up part of the rest, the budget was reduced by $1.5 million through the elimination of all vacant positions and reduction of general operating expenses.

But taxes are being increased more than originally proposed. Taxes will be hiked by 2.8 percent instead of the 2.34 percent originally proposed, according to the release. That will raise an additional $1,454,300.

Essex County will save $1 million because of the new state legislation requiring all public employees to contribute 1.5 percent of their salaries to pay for their health care coverage.

County officials also anticipate $2.25 million of new revenue from housing immigration detainees at the Essex County Correctional Facility. The contract through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program brought in about $16.7 million in revenue in 2009 and is calculated to increase because of additional detainees being brought to the facility.

Delaney Hall, which is a therapeutic residential facility that provides eligible inmates with an opportunity to fight their addictions and help prepare them to re-enter the community after release, had $15 million of its original $18.5 million in funding restored. Essex County has had a partnership with Delaney Hall since 2001 and has received State aid every year to help support the alternative to incarceration program.

A pilot program in which state officials were subsidizing the prosecutor's offices in Essex, Mercer, Camden and Hudson counties had half of its funding restored. Essex County received $1.8 million.

"Even though we had to rework our budget, I support the initiatives by the governor to address the $10 billion State budget deficit. These are similar budget issues we had to deal with when I first took office and I understand that strong action has to be taken," DiVincenzo said in the press release. "The property taxes, unemployment rate and property foreclosures in Essex County are among the highest in the state."

But some costs increased. Costs to remove snow during the winter and an appropriation increase to address an early explosion in the mosquito population resulted in an additional $879,300 being allocated to the Public Works budget.

DiVincenzo is also pursuing other initiatives to control Essex County's budget, according to the press release. During a recent meeting with Gov. Chris Christie, DiVincenzo lobbied to have the State Attorney General's Office assume responsibility for all prosecutor's functions throughout the State. The proposal would save a total of about $410 million in county budgets statewide and about $49 million in Essex County, based on 2009 figures. Christie announced at the meeting he would form a committee to review the proposal.

The Essex County Executive is continuing to freeze salaries for all county employees for 2009 and 2010. According to the release, DiVincenzo also has proposed reducing the number of employee holidays from 14 to 10 days, restructuring the Sheriff's Office into a 24-7 employee schedule to reduce overtime costs and reforming the binding arbitration process so economic factors and government's ability to pay are appropriately considered when public safety contracts are settled.