Pay to Play

Don't kid yourself.  Pay to Play is alive and well in Burlington County.  If you look at the Freeholder Meeting Minutes you will see the same companies repeatedly getting the contracts.  Some of these companies are based in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia.  Why are our elected politicians taking our hard earned money we pay in taxes and giving it to another state?  Why don't they keep the money in Burlington County or at least NJ?  You guessed it, the companies donated to the campaigns.  But, they are being sneaky about it.  There are companies that are donating the limit of $7,800 to local mayoral campaigns (see Florence Township campaign finance reports) where the Mayoral Campaign had a total of over $30,000 in donations, spent about $10,000 on their own campaign and then gave the rest of the money to the Burlington County GOP.  We will be posting a "Follow the Money" page soon.

I would require complete disclosure of all political donations anyone associated with a contract to include the information with their proposal.  If they are found to be hiding any of the information,, they would be disqualified from competing for the contract and any other contract for a minimum of 5 years.  This should become the law and I will push for it.

Real Tax Cuts

The current Freeholders claim they cut your taxes.  They even tried to claim they cut the taxes on a $190,000 assessed home by about $150.  Michael Sawka was at the meeting for the budget and questioned that claim.  They changed the wording in the budget statement to remove that false claim.

So, how much did they really cut your taxes over 3 years?  The actual amount of tax savings on a $190,000 assessed home is about $1.50.  So, the Freeholders in office, over the past 3 years cut the taxes on the average house a total of $1.50.  At least they aren't lying about cutting your taxes, but are you satisfied with $1.50.  I guess it is better than the taxes increasing.  That is what your local governments had to do since the state and county reduced the amount they give to the local governments.

I will stop using creative accounting and make the budget easier for people to understand and require the Budget Statement to be completely accurate and not politically edited.  There is too much of the "not showing the whole picture" when it comes to the statements provided.  This needs to change.

Balancing a Budget (not through creative accounting)

Yes, they have balanced the budget without raising your taxes.  But, how are they doing it.  First, this year, they are counting the $5 million income from the Buttonwood Hospital sale toward the revenue used to pay for all the spending.  Where will this $5 million come from next year?  Next, if you look at this year's budget there are a large number of line items that are not being funded this year.  When I asked about those items at a budget meeting, the Freeholders claim that those items aren't cuts because they expect the state to provide grants to pay for them.  Really?  Can I put stuff into my personal budget and say I plan on winning the lottery to pay for them this year.

Hard decisions need to be made, and they shouldn't be avoided by using creative accounting.  I will push for a team to analyze the budget for waste and make the hard cuts.

County Services need auditing

The County has bought some homes to use for transient people who are in the process of appealing disability claims or other issues.  They are people who are in need of housing assistance on a temporary basis.  This is a good thing.  There is one of these homes a few doors down from my house.  I talked to the prior residents and they seem to be doing well and have moved on.  But, after moving out, new people moved in.  The new people who moved in told me they were county employees who worked for the department and they were going to be living there for a while?  What?  Who authorized this?  The person authorizing this should be fired!  Our tax money to allow county employees to live rent free?

There are probably lots of other areas that need to be audited, but this is one I know of personally.  I will push for audits of all departments and we will cut the waste and fraud.