Brick Council Has Two Weeks To Shore Up Budget

In just two weeks time, Brick Township will formally introduce their spending plan for 2012. The council continues to work feverishly to stave off layoffs in the Department of Public Works.

As we’ve been reporting for almost two months now, Brick Mayor Stephen Acropolis had handed the council his proposed budget which would dissolve the Department of Public Works and layoff 77 workers.

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Council President John Ducey says the challenge they face is keeping the services the public wants while trimming as much fat as they can. Ducey and his mostly Democratic team have put the eight million bucks back into the plan and have heard from all departments.

Ducey says “the Mayor’s plan was totally unreasonable. There are ways to trim in other departments. Instead, he pointed to DPW which would force residents to pay extra for trash and recycling pickup. We are working round the clock at this.”

While most of the council is Democrat, there are some who are Republican and are against the Mayor’s plan. Ducey says “this really isn’t a partisan issue. This is about what the people want. We promised the residents reform and that’s what we are trying to deliver.”

For the last month or so, Ducey and the council have been hearing from the department heads in each major division of the Township. They are going line by line over the expenditures to see what stays and what goes. But what about cutting some administrative staff? It was something State Senate President Steve Sweeney commented on recently. Ducey says “because of the form of government, we can’t do that. We can only cut by totals. The Mayor will have the final say.”

When asked about some of the cuts, Ducey says we will have to wait and see and he can’t divulge till the formal introduction.

The budget will be introduced at the April 17th meeting at town hall.