Budget Cuts Hard In Small Borough

STONE HARBOR — When Stone Harbor Borough Council unveiled its proposed $12.3-million budget on March 2, a resident’s questions evoked a response from a council member.
Some of Charles Koch’s inquiries on spending, hiring, health benefits and government transparency resonated with Councilman Randall Bauer.
As he said, no one draws a home budget with expected spending first, then seeks income to match.
“We’ll all look at what we bring in and make the budget fit that,” said Bauer.
Projecting into the future, Bauer added, “I will not be here,” but he said council must set limitations on expenses.
“We don’t represent the workers or the unions, we represent the people who pay taxes in this town every year,” he said.
In a borough where a penny increase equals $450,000, Bauer said “That’s almost $1 million every two years asking people to pay in addition to what they paid in previous years.”
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to operate government,” Bauer added. “Look at who pays the rent. Who pays for these things?”
Bauer urged peers “not to be doing things we want.” Further, he noted it was “in the province of borough council to say, ‘Here’s what we have, folks. We pay you big bucks to operate your department. Make it fit.’ It may mean one or three less workers.
Hard decisions have not been made” in the municipality.
He said he had read of other municipalities and government making hard and fast decisions based on slimmer budgets.
“One problem here, we are too small. It gets personal,” said Bauer.
He said he had encountered that problem and resistance when he suggested borough council members pay 10 percent of their health insurance, now provided by the borough.
“I ask in future budget deliberations that council has the fortitude to do a zero-based budget and let it fall where it may.
“As I did last year, I ask that we use more surplus to reduce the amount of tax we ask our people to pay,” Bauer concluded.
Contact Campbell at (609) 886-8600 Ext 28 or at: al.c@cmcherald.com