Money Pit - Part 2

We are now in the midst of budget reviews and clearly this is the time to scrutinize our expenses to see how we can spend tax dollars more efficiently.

First, I would like to commend Village President Newman for his repeated insistence that the Village look at things differently to ensure we explore opportunities for Sharing Services, Outsourcing and maximizing economies of scale by looking at our purchasing holistically throughout the entire Village. These are all fundamental concepts that have been adopted in the Corporate world and are long overdue in Municipal Government.

There are two other areas that have recently arisen that should also be explored - expanded Volunteerism and potential consolidations.

1) Expanded Volunteerism - at the recent Budget Workshop, the Fire Chief presented his proposal to increase the fire staff from 8 firefighters per shift to 10 firefighters per shift. His main argument is that the 8 person shift puts us at greater risk. While I greatly respect the Fire Chief and all our firefighters for all they do to risk their lives for our community, we simply cannot afford this increase in headcount and associated expense - particularly with regard to healthcare and pensions.

However, I have suggested to the Chief that he explore supplementing his force with Volunteer Firefighters. There are still numerous towns throughout New Jersey that have entirely Volunteer Fire Departments. While the age of our housing stock, our population density and our high cost of living may not allow an entire Volunteer Department, I would be willing to bet there are numerous people who would be more than willing to Volunteer in order to supplement our current force. Increasing the department through Volunteers would reduce the "risk" the Chief is concerned about, while controlling the costs to the taxpayers which would be a win-win scenario. I will continue to urge the Chief to pursue this.

2) Potential consolidations - clearly, we need to look at the budget creatively to see where we can potentially consolidate redundant activites. Recently, the Parking Authority announced their plan to raise parking meter rates, along with parking permit rates. I support the increase in commuter parking permit rates for the following reasons;
- grant funding for the jitney will expire this year and permit rates will help fund the continuation of jitney service. The jitney is a logical solution to our limited parking, as well as being more environmentally friendly.
- higher commuter rates should encourage higher utilization of the jitney, further helping fund the continuation of jitney service
- higher commuter parking rates will reduce the number of people who are hoarding permits and thereby help move the waiting list
- higher commuter rates are still a fraction of the rates charged by NJ Transit for a permit in the "SOPAC lot"

Clearly, we need to have parking permits to pay for the maintenance of our parking lots, as well as a way of controlling supply and demand.. However, the need for Parking meters and even a Parking Authority is less clear. The question then becomes "who will enforce parking rules without a Parking Authority?". Many people point to Maplewood as a perfect example of how we could survive without meters or an Authority. Although, some skeptics claim it is harder to park in Maplewood than South Orange..

Naturally, someone still needs to enforce Parking regulations and that COULD naturally revert back to the jurisdiction of the Police Department. The critical question is then whether or not doing that work with the required additional people under the Police Department will cost more or less than it does today under a Parking Authority. The time has come for a thorough cost-benefit analysis to examine this very question. We need to ensure we don't sacrifice parking enforcement or general Police protection and at the same time we don't want to simply exchange salaries and benefits in one department for salaries and benefits in another department if there is no saviings. We all may have our gut instincts, but like any business decision, it is important that appropriate analysis is done first. I will be urging the Finance Committee or CBAC to take on this challenge to determine if we can find some real savings. There are bound to be other examples of potential savings that can be found and I welcome your suggestions to help us crawl out of this very deep money pit we find ourselves in.

Feel free to share your thoughts with me at mgoldberg@southorange.org
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