City’s Budget Quizzed at Hearing

CAPE MAY – On March 24, when the focus was on the evolving controversy surrounding the demotion of Robert Sheehan from police chief to captain, Cape May City Council was also engaged in one of its most important annual tasks, the passing of its 2015 budget.
The budget has four major components and totaled $27,143,850. Nearly two thirds of that, $17.1 million, is dedicated to city operations and administration. The other components are three utilities: water ($6.7 million), beach ($2.3 million) and tourism ($1.1 million). The budget was introduced in January with an almost three-hour presentation by City Manager Bruce MacLeod.
The budget calls for a one cent per $100 of assessed value increase in the local tax rate. That penny was a bone of contention for some at the meeting.
Kate Wyatt, representing Cape May City Tax Payers Association, told council, “You can no longer spin the budget as just a small increase.” She quoted figures from the Department of Community Affairs that rank Cape May City as number four, “with the highest percentage increase in 2014 for shore communities.” According to Wyatt, the city has seen “a 24 percent change in taxes from 2009 through 2014.”
Wyatt presented possible areas where tourism expense might be moved to the utility that has been set up to gradually absorb tourism-related expenses and cover them with user generated revenue.
These included losses on the inaugural 2014 Seafood Festival and publication of the City Guide. Wyatt concluded by calculating that the one cent increase is about $280,000 in budgeted expense. She challenged council to find the $280,000 in cuts. “Find the penny,” she concluded.
One of the issues in the budget process each year is deciding how much of the budget surplus from previous years to include in the current budget in order to reduce the tax levy.
Before he resigned from council, Jerry Inderwies had pushed for a greater use of the surplus with the increased funds used both to eliminate the $70,000 reduction in the budgeted amount for the fire department and to take the local tax rate increase below one cent. That issue was not raised at the forum.
Funding of the fire department was another concern during the discussion of the budget. A representative of the firefighters’ union addressed council on the “decrease of $70,000 for salary and wages” for the department.
Citing manpower problems in the department where “only two of the 14 career firefighters live in the city” and where volunteerism is at low levels, he asserted that what is needed is a commitment to a long-range plan to increase department manpower. Even though manpower issues “cannot be solved overnight,” he told council that a move “in the opposite direction” should not be approved.
Council member Shaine Meier introduced a resolution to restore the $70,000 to the fire department budget while reducing other areas of the budget with the major portion coming from funds for anticipated legal fees. The motion received no second.
Mayor Edward Mahaney promised that council would undertake a study of the manpower needs of both the fire and police departments, but he had his statement interrupted by hoots from the audience. Mahaney reiterated the commitment and said, “We will move forward on this as we have everything else in the past.”
Three other issues dominated discussion of the budget. There were concerns expressed that overtime expense was too large, that the amounts budgeted for legal fees were both too high and too poorly explained, and that the costs associated with Convention Hall are opaque and in need of much more transparency.
In the end, council moved approved the budget on 3-1 vote, with Meier voting no.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.