Are Rahway Residents the Canaries in the Money Pit??
By Patricia Quattrocchi | January 27, 2010
Almost one half of Union County’s municipalities are served by the Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority including Rahway, Clark, Mountainside, Westfield Scotch Plains, Cranford, Garwood, Springfield, Kenilworth and Roselle Park. The subject of privatization has come up more than once and as recently as last year with the commissioners divided as to the benefits that the participating municipalities would realize, needless to say that the jury is still out.
The following press release was put out the other day pertaining to the City of Rahway approving their spending plan for the year. Contained in the budget as approved was some fancy footwork in regard to the billing and payment of funds to the Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority. The release is fairly self exclamatory but residents of other municipalities in Union County would do well to keep an eye on Rahway as they lead the charge against the sewer authority seemingly supported in this effort by Clark and Woodbridge who along with Rahway are demanding an audit/investigation. The mayors of the aforementioned municipalities can claim that they are only looking out for their taxpayers, however, if they choose to follow in the footsteps of Rahway they also could find themselves going down a path that could ultimately give their residents the short shrift.
It would seem that if a municipality billed the tax payers for sewer costs specifically and that dollar amount was more than necessary to cover the fees due to the authority than the overpayments collected should go back to the residents in the form of a refund or a credit toward the next payment and not just dumped into the city’s general fund to cover other operating expenses.
RAHWAY DEMOCRATS PASS “SMOKE AND MIRRORS “BUDGET
RESIDENTS OVERCHARGED FOR SEWER FEES
AND ONCE AGAIN
KENNEDY SKIPS PAYING INTO PENSIONS
Rahway: Last Thursday night, 1/21/10, the 9-0 Democrat controlled Rahway City Council passed Jim Kennedy’s 20th budget as mayor.
How fitting that this meeting should have taken place in the basement of city hall because what transpired did not deserve to see the light of day as the council hit an all time low in tricking the tax payers and hurting city employees.
Who is doing the overcharging here?????
In a letter sent to Rahway residents just 24 months ago Mayor Kennedy stated that collecting sewer fees separately from property taxes would be necessary to “plug high sewer costs” and “would save tax payers money”. Now, according to city budget documents which show almost $2 million dollars in surplus collections, it is apparent that Rahway’s homeowners and small business’ are being overcharged. When questioned about the obvious over charges Rahway city officials stated that the practice of using surplus sewer collections was a way to balance the $44 million dollar city budget even though the monies are collected from Rahway residents specifically to satisfy what is labeled on the residents water bills as an RSVA Facility Charge. Despite inquiries by one lone citizen regarding the existence of the $1.9 million sewer surplus the all democrat council voted to continue using the sewer fee collections to fund day to day city operations
While Mayor Kennedy blames the Rahway Valley Sewage Authority for breaking the city’s budget, this year he will collect enough money to pay the RSVA $3.2 million in sewer assessments for Rahway, and still have $1.9 million left over to again go toward funding city operations.
*************************************************************This section was devoted to the pension deferrment the city approved********************
Cassio asks why the mayor hasn’t cut the salaries of his high paid cronies in management, “how many big shots in City Hall make over $100k a year?” He speculated that there has to be at least 20 “well connected” people.
Cassio went on to also ask why the mayor doesn’t collect the millions owed to the city by his developer friends. “The downtown has turned into a Black Hole where millions of tax dollars have disappeared over this decade. And I think this Mayor’s administration is running this city with smoke and mirrors and treating the taxpayers like they are selling them a used car.”
HOW MUCH MORE WILL THE PEOPLE IN RAHWAY HAVE TO PUT UP WITH??
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Click Here for RVSA Website http://www.rahwayvalleysa.com/rvsa_service_area/service_area.shtml
To review minutes of the RVSA prior to ‘09 visit our document folder
http://unioncountywatchdog.org/docs/