By Philip Sean Curran
Monmouth County Freeholders voted 4-0 March 18 to approve a $449.6 million budget to fund county government, with officials pointing to higher state pension costs as one of the reasons why the budget grew slightly compared to last year.
The spending plan will be supported by raising $305.5 million in taxes, up $1.5 million, or less than half a percent, from 2018. The budget will enable the county to pay for everything from providing public safety, having a library with the largest circulation in the state and maintaining more than 17,000 acres of parkland, one county official said.
“So, I don’t think you can overlook some of the positives that we’re able to accomplish,” Freeholder Lillian G. Burry said before she and the rest of the all-Republican board voted to pass the budget. “We have not sacrificed the services,” she said.
Freeholder Susan M. Kiley was absent from the meeting.
The size of the budget that was adopted this week mirrors the spending plan that freeholders introduced in February. Like then, the county pointed to how it is spending less money than it did earlier in the decade. As recently as 2014, the budget stood at $480.9 million, with spending trending downward since then.
Earlier in the meeting, Burry said officials scrutinized the spending plan “line by line by line.” Later, she said that in recent years, the county workforce has gone down.
“And how did we do it?” she asked rhetorically. “We did it through attrition. And it’s starting to really show.”
Salaries and wages cost $179 million in 2008, but they are at $170.9 million for this year, according to data supplied by the county. In terms of employee headcount, the county has gone from 3,781 full and part-time and seasonal positions to 2,858 for 2019.
Freeholder Director Thomas A. Arnone, speaking earlier in the meeting, pointed his finger at state government in Trenton for a major cost driver in the budget and for holding back revenue that should come the county’s way.
“And we’re getting pounded and pounded and pounded from the state when we’re trying to work with our partners through the municipalities,” he said.
He referenced how state pension costs, the amount the county pays into the pension system, are up by $2.2 million. Despite that, the county budget overall is up $1.65 million compared to last year’s spending plan. And Arnone returned to an issue he has raised before, of how the county does not get its share of 911 money that the state collects from charges on monthly phone bills. The funds are supposed to be reinvested in 911 services at the state, county and local levels, with the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office operating a 911 dispatching center.
“That money is supposed to come back to us,” Arnone said.
He promised to have another press conference this year to spotlight the issue and urged the members of the public attending the meeting to write to Gov. Phil Murphy and their state legislators.
Earlier in the meeting, he credited the county officials who had a hand in crafting the budget.
