Cascio, Ullman talk cuts
Prior to Calamari’s calculation that only slightly over $800,000 was unencumbered in last year’s budget, Cascio said he saw a 10% budget cut “pretty much across the board” although he said necessary items such as firefighters’ air packs, called Scott Paks, were a requirement and would not be cut.
Cascio said, “But there’s other places we can gleam out of this budget 10%. There’s no doubt in my mind … we’re going to work together and we’re going to find somewhere to take this budget down 10%.”
He said there were “some places we can do it and some places we cannot do it” adding that the council majority was “realistic about that.”
He said taxpayers “feel overburdened and overtaxed and we can do it,” regarding the proposed reduction. “We’re all smart people up here, if we put our heads together we can come up with a budget that’s reduced. There’s no doubt in my mind we can do that. There never was.”
Cascio said the budget should “get what we need, not what we want. That’s how we work in most of our households. And I think we can do it if we work together, and I think we can work together.”
He added, “Together is a word that we have to start using and we have to do it and we can do it, I’m confident, everyone up here on this dais has a commitment to this town, and this is what the townspeople want. And that’s my plan.”
How to make cuts
Cascio said, “If we need to take zero from one line but we can whack 20% from somewhere else that we don’t really need, then I’m OK with that. And that’s my plan, but we have to get into the specifics of it.”
Cascio said no one could make a “blanket statement” about doing away with any department. “There’s stuff we need and stuff that are luxuries.”
Calamari noted last year’s budget was $15.8 million and asked the council majority if they wanted to cut the budget by 10%, or $1.58 million, where should the cuts come from.
Cascio said he wanted “to get started on reducing it, but let’s be realistic it built up over time, it’s going to take awhile to build down over time. if I can get a steady or some type of reduction, as long as we’re going in the right direction,” he added.
Ullman noted that employees covered by collective bargaining agreements, or CBAs, debt service payments, required statutory payments such as the public library, are some of the budget items which cannot be cut “even if we all wanted to” and said he did not know what that that amount totaled.
However, Ullman said he wanted to cut “the residual of that” and called “for flattening or reducing” of that amount.
Calamari said last year’s $15.8 million budget included $6 million in salaries, including those covered by CBAs and other non-CBA employees, and asked if non-CBA employees should be budgeted for salary increases in the 2024 budget. “You can budget for it,” Cascio told him.
DiCarlo said he wished to clarify Ullman’s statement, noting most town employees view council meeting broadcasts, and asked if non-CBA employees were “not necessarily safe” from being cut 10 percent.
Ullman said he was not “personally looking to cut salaries for any employee, at this point in time.”
Calamari said he hoped the council “would entertain reasonable increases” noting three unspecified council members were paid by tax dollars (not from local taxes) and that all three will likely get raises in 2024. “So I hope that we would treat our staff the same as far as that goes.”
Calamari asked again where the council majority saw a 10% cut. “We can’t do with less postage, we can’t cut back our telephones. There’s a lot of things on here that will not stand a cut.”
He said he was “not sure what metrics anyone uses” to determine local taxes are “too high” in the township. He showed a slide that he prepared, which was aired over WCTV, that showed the tax rate in the township ranked sixth out of 10 nearby towns.
He calculated the local tax rate at 0.656%. He said based on that, he did not understand the call for a 10% tax cut.
Calamari’s chart ranked Westwood’s tax rate at 0.671%, in seventh place, but DeSena noted that Westwood has “a lot more ratables” (approximately $185 million) than the township. DeSena said the tax rate number was skewed as “total ratables determined what the tax rate is.”
DeSena said he would like to get the total number of ratables in the 10 towns that were ranked by Calamari. The towns listed were the eight Pascack Valley towns, plus Oradell and Old Tappan.
Calamari also chided DeSena, Cascio and Ullman for capital spending amounts that they approved during prior terms on council. He presented a chart of capital ordinances and dollar amounts that he alleged were approved by the three new councilors. The chart was broadcast on WCTV, and shown on the meeting’s YouTube video.
Calamari alleged Cascio approved $19,734,485 in capital spending since 2017; that DeSena approved $16,788,362; and that Ullman approved $9,324,485.
None of the three publicly disputed Calamari’s numbers, though DeSena requested a copy of the slide. He previously said he was having trouble viewing the slides on the community TV monitor. It was unclear if Ullman and Cascio could view the slides.
Calamari said, “And so, I want to keep this civil. Now you want a tax decrease even though you collectively added to our tax burden by this,” said the mayor, citing his capital spending totals. He said the three councilors did not previously call for a 10% budget cut when they approved previous capital spending.
Velez wondered what might happen if the council budgets “too low” in certain line items. Calamari said if the township’s budget is running too low in September or October, he said its chief financial officer had told him that the state “would not look very kindly on that.”
He said the state would require the township to describe why so many line items were under-budgeted should that occur. Calamari said such under-budgeting could affect the township’s future bond rating, or cost to borrow money.
Next: Upcoming 2024 property revaluation?