Budget situation more complicated than Robinson-Briggs understands?

Plainfield's budget struggle gets under way in earnest tonight with the Administration's formal offering (finally!) of its FY2010 proposal to the City Council.

Besides the budget itself, the Council will take up the Robinson-Briggs administration's proposed layoff plan and its extraordinary aid application to the State for FY2010.

Hopefully, City Council President Burney will take the opportunity to introduce the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC) to the public and maybe ceremonially present them with their copies so they can also get down to business -- which they have been anxious to do since appointed earlier this Fall.

In fact, the CBAC has set up a blog to solicit citizen input and comment, as well as to update the public on the CBAC's work (see here).

While everyone's attention is focused on the issue of cost-cutting to minimize the pain of an expected tax increase, I have to wonder whether the Robinson-Briggs administration, which is not known for thinking very far ahead, has any plan at all for dealing with its budget problems in a longer-term perspective.

That means assessing situations over which the City has no control as well as those over which it does and shaping a plan that defends the integrity of necessary City services, maximizes revenue opportunities and reduces the pain to taxpayers as much as possible.

EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES

The Robinson-Briggs administration needs to show taxpayers that it understands the constraints of reality and stop looking to magical thinking --

• Federal Stimulus money is designed to go away after 2010; monies already granted must be spent without the anticipation of any more help from the Feds -- whether for police staffing or infrastructure projects;
  
  
• Gov.-elect Christie will be under tremendous pressure to keep state aid to cities under tight control, meaning we can only expect less, and it is a pure fiction to put out request numbers that have the same chances as a snowball in Hell;
  
  
• The effects of the recession, especially on joblessness and small businesses, will be with us for at least another year, negatively impacting revenue streams for the City.

INTEGRITY OF CITY SERVICES

The Robinson-Briggs administration's proposed layoff plan has generated great anxiety both among employees and in the community, for two main reasons --

• The GUTTING OF THE PLANNING DIVISION -- which is responsible for all planning, zoning and historic preservation matters citywide -- is widely seen as an effort to outsource these essential City functions to the politically juiced South Jersey engineering firm (Remington & Vernick) which suddenly appeared on the scene after tens of thousands of dollars were 'wheeled' to Mayor Robinson-Briggs' 2005 primary campaign, securing her election as mayor;
  
  
• There is NO MENTION OF FURLOUGHS as an alternative to layoffs -- something which the Robinson-Briggs administration undertook discussions on last year but never effected. I have been told several unions, understanding furloughs shared the pain and saved jobs, were ready to move ahead but the Robinson-Briggs administration let the opportunity pass.

REDUCING PAIN TO TAXPAYERS

Reducing pain to taxpayers has got to be a long-term perspective of the Robinson-Briggs administration, and that means planning --

• REVENUE PLANNING would include items such as how to shore up PARKING and TRAFFIC COURT revenues, as well as UNEXPLORED REVENUE SOURCES such as cell-tower fees, and increased user fees;
  
  
• MAINTAINING ASSESSMENT INTEGRITY is a ticklish issue, but every tax appeal that is successful only pushes the burden onto the shoulders of the other taxpayers, so it is in the interest of ALL TAXPAYERS to defend against tax appeals -- especially in the non-residential sector, where they have a disproportionate impact on the tax base; and
  
  
• DIVERSIFYING THE TAX BASE by correcting the imbalance between the residential and CIB (commercial, industrial and business) portions of the tax base. In the mid-1960s, CIB accounted for one third of the tax revenues; the last I checked the figure was down to 18%, all the rest of the balance being carried by residential property owners. To counteract this decline, the Robinson-Briggs administration needs to have a two-pronged strategy of preserving those components already in place and of attracting new businesses across the CIB spectrum to locate in Plainfield.

Lastly, and most painful for me personally -- since the appearance of the community is so important to people's perceptions of its overall attractiveness -- would be to declare a moratorium on road improvements. Not forever, but for the duration of the recession.

The current hard times will not last forever, and once the economic situation at the grassroots begins to improve, the question of the long-term roads plan can be put back on the active agenda.

The Robinson-Briggs administration has managed to dodge the budget bullet over the past four years, but time and circumstances have caught up with it. If we are going to be faced with four more years of a Robinson-Briggs administration, it is only fair to expect better planning and management of the tasks at hand.

And I haven't even mentioned the line item for catering and sweets.

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• Blog: "Citizens Budget Advisory Committee"

-- Dan Damon [follow]

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