County Says Positions, Not Services, Cut in This Year's Budget

While the reduction of 27 positions will save Somerset County $2.8 million in this year’s budget, residents should not see any reductions in county services.

“I do not believe that it will affect any services,” said Freeholder Peter S. Palmer, finance committee chairman, of the proposed $211,067,689 budget. “We haven’t eliminated anything that we have been doing.”

Instead, he said, it was more a matter of “doing at least as much with less.”

A public hearing on the proposed 2011 budget will be held at 7 p.m. April 12 at the freeholders’ meeting room in the Somerset County Administration Building, at 20 Grove Street in Somerville.

The proposed budget is $161,411, or about 0.08 percent, below 2010 numbers.

The net overall effect on county taxpayers will be negligible, according to Palmer, who added that it will be, “practically nothing because of the nature of how the tax board allocates the county’s ratable."

"There will be some modest increases in some towns and decreases in others," he said. "We have no control over that.”

Palmer said the county has done the best it could to avoid raising taxes.

“We certainly recognize the anti-tax sentiment of the country and the state, and we have done our best to accommodate that by not increasing our taxes and, at the same time, not decreasing our services,” he said.

A key contributor to the 2011 budget numbers has been the reduction in the county’s work force. The process, Palmer explained, began about 2.5 years ago, as the county took a critical eye to hiring to fill vacancies, and began filling only essential positions.

“It’s been a real credit to our management team that we’ve been able to do this,” he said.

The 27 positions that are being eliminated have been achieved through attrition. In total, 149 positions have been eliminated since 2008.

In addition, 16 of the 19 unions representing county employees have agreed to accept a one-year wage freeze for 2010 or 2011. Negotiations and arbitration procedures with the remaining unions are ongoing.

Allocations in the 2011 proposed budget reflect reductions in most areas, including reductions of:

• 3.46 percent in general county operations
• 5.76 percent in constitutional offices, including a 16.26 percent cut in the Election Board and a 3.53 percent increase in the Superintendent of Schools
• 6.26 percent in debt service and capital costs
• 0.45 percent in public health and safety, including a 44.05 percent cut in emergency management and a 35.17 percent reduction in the health department budget.

With increases of less than one percent proposed in the areas of public safety—which includes a 3.85 percent hike in the office of the prosecutor—and independent agencies, there are increases of 1.27 percent in the cost of state and federal programs and 8.69 percent in fixed costs.

Those fixed costs reflect such items as pensions and insurance.

“The big thing out of state government is the 2 percent cap [with some exceptions] on tax increases,” Palmer said. “The state sends us pension bills going up more than 10 percent per year. Health insurance costs continue to escalate at more than 2 percent per year.”

“Personally, I don’t see a need to take those exceptions," he added. "I believe we can live sustainably within 2 percent, but I don’t think we can live within zero percent."