Budget Introduced Over Democratic Council Members' Objections

Fair Lawn borough council members' futile attempts to reach unanimous agreement on the budget last year ended up delaying its adoption until July and pushing back the timeline for completion on a number of capital projects.

This year, Republican council members didn't let Democratic dissension prolong budget talks.

When council members Lisa Swain and Kurt Peluso opposed introduction of this year's budget Tuesday night without providing any advance notice or offering a reason for their votes, Fair Lawn's three council Republicans didn't even bother asking them for an explanation. They simply moved ahead with introduction of the budget, which passed in a 3-2 party-line vote, and the meeting continued. No one spoke another word about the budget for the remainder of the work session.

Afterward, Deputy Mayor Ed Trawinski said he was disappointed but not surprised that Swain and Peluso opposed introducing the budget, even though he'd never before heard either express their intention to do so.

"What they’re looking for is to create a campaign issue where none exists and the budget shouldn’t be about a campaign issue," said Trawinski, who applauded the borough manager and chief financial officer for crafting the $46.8 million budget that includes a 1.38 percent tax increase. "It should be about whether it’s a good budget for the people of Fair Lawn."

Reached for comment after the meeting, Peluso said he opposed the budget because he thought it imposed too great of a tax burden on residents. He would have preferred to take an additional $500,000 from surplus, which would have brought the tax increase down 1 percentage point to under 0.38 percent, he said.

Peluso said he hadn't brought his budget concerns to Republican council members because of the way they had responded last year when he suggested eliminating the position of recreation supervisor.

"I did a lot of work to cut taxes [last year] and it was ignored," he said.

After Republicans rebuffed Peluso's proposal to lay off the recreation supervisor last year, he declined to continue offering his other prepared cost savings suggestions, saying, “If there’s an unwillingness for our council members to cut this position, I don’t think there would be a willingness to help the taxpayers any more.”

The remark prompted a blowup from Trawinski, who characterized Peluso's comment as politically-motivated "poppycock" and predicted a future campaign piece from Fair Lawn Democrats excoriating Republicans for not wanting to help taxpayers. Then-Mayor Jeanne Baratta told Peluso she didn’t respect his opinion and likened the Democrats to children, saying the Republicans had previously delayed introduction of the budget to appease them.

"I think it's pretty obvious they wouldn't have gone for it," Peluso said Tuesday of his current cost-cutting proposal. "They didnt even want to hear why I voted 'No'."

While Peluso stated publicly at last year's budget introduction meeting that he "would support any budget that maintains that 2 percent cap," he said his standards had tightened this year because of the numerous fee increases council had imposed on residents over the past year, namely a doubling of the water meter service charge from $5 to $10.

Peluso committed to voting for the budget on first reading next Tuesday if council agreed to use more surplus and reduce the tax increase by 1 percentage point, to 0.38 percent.

As the budget introduced Tuesday stands, the town would use $3 million in surplus, leaving a fund balance of about $2.87 million going forward. The average assessed homeowner would see his taxes increase by about $39 over last year.

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