Smaller N.J. towns face daunting cutbacks

After the mayor of Lumberton said he planned to lay off 15 employees to salvage a municipal budget that proposed state measures have all but doomed, an incensed crowd descended on town hall.

"Your employees are Lumberton Township, not you!" one resident said this month at a mobbed Township Committee meeting, where more than a few called for Mayor Patrick Delany's resignation.

"What are you thinking?" another howled.

Delany, a slight man with a firm expression, stared down the 300 accusers and told them he was out of options.

A $147,000 decrease in Lumberton's state aid under a proposal by Gov. Corzine, plus rising health-care costs for employees and a new mandate capping increases in the property-tax levy at 4 percent annually, had left nowhere else to cut, he said.

All over South Jersey, local officials have begun the difficult process of deciding how to balance the books under Corzine's $33 billion budget plan, which would reduce financial aid for municipalities by 10.5 percent, inflicting the deepest cuts on smaller towns and cities.

The governor said last week that he would try to ease the pain by devising a plan to phase in aid cuts. But he warned that something else would then have to be slashed from the budget, which seeks $2.7 billion in reductions to try to solve state fiscal woes. The deadline to adopt the budget is July 1.

Some strapped South Jersey towns are already laying off staff, offering early retirement, and letting jobs go unfilled.

Audubon, which could lose $326,000 in aid, will lay off a half-dozen law enforcement, public-works and administrative employees, officials there say. Runnemede, facing a $333,000 reduction, plans to eliminate 61/2 positions by dissolving its board of health and paring its police, fire and other departments.

Barrington, which could lose $351,000, is considering offering early retirement to seven employees, four in the Police Department.

"We had to cut expenses," Audubon Mayor Chris Tassi said. The drop in aid "hurt us - and the operating budget. It's the salaries, the pensions, the health insurance."

"It's almost a perfect recipe for layoffs and reductions," Bill Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, said of the Corzine plan, which would eliminate aid to towns with fewer than 5,000 residents and halve it to those with populations of 5,000 to 10,000.

Municipal officials say the rising costs of fuel and employee health care and pension packages also have them scrutinizing payrolls. At the same time, construction-permit revenues are declining in the depressed real estate market.

The mandate to produce a budget under the 4 percent cap couldn't have come at a worse time, Runnemede Mayor Ginny Betteridge said.

It's valuable "so that your taxpayers can realize that everybody's being financially responsible," Betteridge said, but combined with the state-aid reduction, it "put us in a very, very bad situation."

Fewer employees are doing more work in an effort to avoid - or at least minimize - layoffs, say many officials.

Gibbsboro, which could be out $158,000 in aid, won't replace a deputy clerk who left.

Stratford, which stands to lose $262,000, laid off a public-works employee and will have one part-time and two full-time court employees handle work once done by four.

Haddonfield, facing a $164,000 cut, won't replace a retiring police officer, for a savings of $100,000.

"The overall request from the governor is simply asking all levels of government, from state departments down to the most local levels, to find efficiencies wherever they can and to pitch in with the statewide belt-tightening measures that are required to get the state's finances on the right track," said Jim Gardner, a Corzine spokesman.

Corzine has encouraged small towns to share services or merge. Many contend that they already share a number of services, making them more efficient than some bigger municipalities.

In Lumberton, finances worsened after development in the township fell short of projections, said Delany, the mayor. Officials already had streamlined the construction and tax offices and cut administrative staff, he said.

Delany said one of the last places left to trim was the Police Department, which accounts for 40 percent of the township's budget and has a payroll that includes 12 employees with salaries above $100,000.

The decision to lay off as many as five of its 29 police officers and two department secretaries has outraged the Fraternal Order of Police and some residents, who cite a rising gang presence in Lumberton.

"I'm losing the police officers I depend on," resident Keith Graham said at the committee meeting. "You have to be able to come up with some meaningful cuts."

Delany said he had tried to work with the affected unions to reduce the layoffs.

The FOP did not return a request for comment.

It's about striking a balance, said Committeeman James "Buddy" Miller, who by the end of the meeting looked drained and was sliding down in his seat.

"I think what [residents] really want is that all governments tighten their belts, that there be some fiscal responsibility, that we cut back on nonessential type of spending, which is not what happens up in Trenton," Miller said later.

"By and large," he added, "the response I've gotten from most taxpayers is it's about time."