South Brunswick Township Lays Off Seven Employees

South Brunswick Township is eliminating seven positions in various departments as part of an effort to reduce spending as work continues on the 2011 municipal budget.  Positions were eliminated in the Township Clerk's office, Social Services Department, Finance Department, the Tax Assessor's office, and Legal Administration.

"Certainly myself and the rest of the council are not thrilled with having to layoff anybody," Mayor Frank Gambatese said.  "It's not something that we're happy about but it's something that is a reality in today's world."

Township officials said the staff reductions will cause initial difficulties moving forward in the various departments.

"This causes a tremendous amount of difficulty because those were mostly clerical people that support those departments," said Public Affairs Coordinator Ron Schmalz.  "We're going to have people wearing different hats to be able to keep things running as smoothly as possible for the residents of the township."

In addition, the township is losing an additional five to seven positions through attrition due to the hiring freeze that has been in place for the last five years, Schmalz said.  Those positions that will not be filled are in affordable housing, the municipal court, code enforcement, finance and the police department.

"Every township is trying to stay within the two percent cap but that's very difficult when you have increases of $700,000 for pensions and $300,000 for health benefits," Gambatese said.  "That's three tax points in itself. We can't go on forever not giving people raises.  The unions have been very supportive of what we're trying to do.  But this affects the unions and they're not happy about it, but we don't know what else we can do."

Over the last five years, South Brunswick is down 56 positions from layoffs and attrition, which reduced the township workforce from 295 people to 239 people, not including the latest staff reductions.  

The positions that were eliminated are part of an ongoing effort to reduce a proposed 8-cent tax rate increase in the tentative municipal budget that was introduced earlier this month.

The proposed budget cuts spending by about $1 million from last year's $47.3 million spending plan.  The proposed budget would increase the tax rate to 80-cents per $100 of assessed valuation.  Under the proposed budget, the owner of a home assessed at the township average would see a $150 to $160 increase on their tax bill.  The budget cuts spending by 2 percent and falls within the new 3.5 percent spending cap and within the new 2 percent tax levy cap.

Township officials have repeatedly stated that the proposed budget will continue to undergo extensive changes in an attempt to reduce the tax hike.

The proposed budget included 10 layoffs of township employees and an undetermined amount of furlough days.  The actual number of total layoffs and furlough days will be determined over the coming weeks as the council evaluates the budget.   

The employees whose positions have been eliminated may continue to work for the township if they have seniority over an employee with a similar position in another department under the same union.  The employee with less time working for the township would then lose their job.

"The people whose positions were eliminated, if they have enough time with the township in their union, would be able to bump people with lesser time," Schmalz said.   "The union goes by seniority, so people who have enough time can bump people in other locations."

Gambatese said the bumping of other employees will also cause difficulties for the departments as they're forced to train new people.

"Unfortunately the lower salaried employees have less seniority," he said. "That means we need to layoff more than what we would normally would if we were laying off the higher end salaries.  As a result of these layoffs about 21 bumps occurred.  

"Now we have new people moving into departments where they need to be trained.  That puts a tremendous burden and pressure on the person going in to the new department and on their coworkers who need to train them while also picking up additional work."

Schmalz said the township is hopeful that this round of eliminations will be the end of employee layoffs, but there is no certainty at the present time.

"The question is whether this is the end of it," he said.  "We just don't know right now."

Gambatese said the township simply can't operate smoothly with any additional layoffs, which means that services will need to be cut.

"There's just no way we can layoff more employees," he said.  "We're down below the level of what makes sense to run a township of this size.

"It's not a good situation for anybody and none of us are happy, but there isn't much of a choice.  We're at the 2 percent cap right now, but we're trying to bring the tax increase down because we don't think an 8-cent increase would be fair to the residents, so this is where we're at. We're trying to be fair to everyone but that's very difficult."