STONE HARBOR – Chief Financial Officer James Craft gave a brief presentation on the proposed 2024 operating budget at the borough council meeting Tuesday, Dec. 5. The presentation covered 11 departments’ general fund requests and the operating budget request from the Water and Sewer Utility.
The presentation took the form of comparing 2024 department requests to 2023 budgeted amounts. It dealt only with operating funds and gave no detail on the number of personnel positions, salary and wages expense, or statutory expense tied to salary and wages.
The lack of salary and wages and position numbers makes the departmental expense difficult to fully envision since the 2023 budget shows that salary and wages, not including the accompanying expense for pension and benefits, was nearly 60% of departmental operating budgets.
According to the 2023 budget document on the borough’s website, Stone Harbor has 238 employees. That number does not include contract staff.
The non-personnel numbers presented for the 11 departments had a total request that was $162,528 above 2023 levels, with most of that attributed to a $144,070 increase in the natural resource committee budget. Craft said that part of that increase was due to the shift of some expenses from other places in the budget.
What may necessitate discussion is a $50,000 request for a beach consultant. Since coastal consultant Douglas Gaffney stopped attending council meetings, there has been almost no discussion of the beach feasibility study done by his firm, Mott MacDonald, at a cost of almost $175,000. The study was never publicly discussed in detail at a council meeting, and Gaffney, who developed it, has never been seen again at a council meeting.
Requested operating expenses for the water and sewer general budget were also included in the presentation. Water and sewer budgets are part of a separate utility funded from user fees and not tax dollars. The water and sewer general budget presented by Craft showed a drop of $39,000 in non-personnel operating costs.
Craft said that at the next meeting of council, Tuesday, Dec. 19, he will present the remaining department budgets.
The Dec. 5 presentation of one-half of the borough departmental requests for non-personnel dollars did not involve any discussion of goals, priorities, changes in direction or personnel levels. It was largely a review of dollar variances between the 2023 budgeted non-personnel operating dollars and the proposed amounts for 2024. It also did not deal with debt service, statutory expense, grants or capital investments.
Contact the author, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.
