By Bill Hobday, For TLS. Dear Residents,
Everyone wants to be a responsible resident or public employee that serves the needs of the people. Neither is easy to do with dignity and grace. We have a situation where the governing body manages 30% of tax revenue needed to deliver municipal services that are needed and demanded by the residents. Could you imagine what it would be like to reduce services by Public Works and/or Police. Reducing services would be easy, but it simply would not work. The hard part is to maintain services at a reduced price.
I believe that there are many savings, through technology, that will help reduce the cost of government, and the Township Committee needs to examine all of them to determine more efficient and cost saving methods to deliver services to the residents. This includes shared services with Ocean County. All of the Municipalities need to look at joining together for buying power and sharing data and services.
The 50% of tax revenue rests with the Lakewood School District. Municipal Government has little influence and responsibility for that budget, but it continues to be Lakewood’s problem. The problem is not going away any time soon, because we are downing in a sea of regulation, special interests, unusual transportation costs, unusual special education costs, a high number of students in the public schools that do not speak English and are under the radar, and a high degree of disagreement on how the District should be managed. If we can all agree to hold the line on expense, and gain the most benefit for our tax dollar, we will move in the right direction, but understand that every dollar cut will hurt someone or something. We must look at transportation cost, reducing waste, and developing a reasonable bus route system. This means that start/stop times will need to be adjusted. If we really want to address the issues, this is the place to start.
The other 20% can and should be managed carefully and with a cost/benefit relationship role. We need fire and County services. Many of our roadways are county roads that need county money to maintain and improve them as Lakewood grows.
Bill Hobday
the 30% is also mismanaged
lets not shovle it under the carpet
lets get some real reform
not special interests
everything in this article is true ,however there is no solutions to the issues raised here ,for instance its easy to say hold the line on expenses BUT HOW ? we have all to often heard the same rhetoric from all the politicians and no plan in place for corrective action. Until everyone is willing to make some compromises nothing will change.
outsource the public works and inspection departments it will save millions to he township as well as provide a better service.
In any normal responsible household spending less has become the norm. As much as we still need the past lifestyle, cuts had to be made , even at the expense of……. Why cant government do the same?
A glaring example of waste,the redo on the Lakewood MUA bldg.Can someone OPRA the MUA to see how much the renovation COST US!!
He is correct with special interests groupd but we all know this. Once again no new ideas just lip sevice
or the new needed cruisers for lpd one already got smashed
i would vote 4 bill i think he really means well and appreciate the outreach to our community
or an “assist” Manager for the township too! There have been no pay freezes or furloughs! One department took a hit for the town, but not any others. So if township officials really want to do the job they were hired to do, then start with themselves and makes cuts with all employees!
Do the town council members receive salaries and health benefits for their part time gov’t jobs?? How about some shared sacrifice?
The education system in NJ is terribly antiquated. There is no reason why all BOE should be handled at the county level. Cut the waste and “connections’ from the township level. The governor needs to take up this initiative.
Mr. Bill Hobday is a good man and I use that term like it was used a generation ago. There is no higher praise than that.
Someone should tell Christy so we can get tax relief
The #1 issue is the scandalous imbalance in tax assessments. Seniors are grossly underassessed and pay bobkes, frum are over-assessed and pay double. One local politician already paid with his local seat for this travesty. I’d like to see someone in the senior villages have the guts to get up and tell it like it is and insist they pay their fair share. Until then everything else is irrelevant.
It’s all about the Unions. All department heads need to be replaced with fresh blood.
Whenever any leader in the Orthodox community finally has the guts to publicly admit that school transportation and SCHI services can be obtained for half the current cost w/o compromising quality, a saving of at least fifteen million dollars annually, then we will admit that the assessments may need readjustment. Clean your own house first. We are all taxpayers.
just as I said ” Until everyone is willing to make some compromises nothing will change.”
No one s willing to look at the whole picture its always cut from someone else and leave my inerests alone
I predict nothing will change based on how things have been managed in this town in the past ,as the past is the best predictor of the future ,especially when thing are managed with the same mentality.