Citizens Campaign Forum Promotes Efficient Spending, Effective Government

The way for citizens to begin identifying ways to save money in their towns is to ask questions, according to state Comptroller Matthew Boxer.

How much do municipal employees get paid, including their salaries and benefits? Are those employees enrolled in the state pension plan, or does the town use a private plan? How many phone lines is the town paying for and are they all in use?

Boxer was the keynote speaker at The Citizens Campaign's "Can Citizens Make Government Work Better and Cost Less?" forum held Tuesday night at Middlesex County College.

The Citizens Campaign is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that focuses on educating the public on ways to be productive, participatory citizens in local government.

Tuesday's forum featured presentations from a number of experts in municipal spending, including Mark Magyar of The Independent Center, Rutgers University's Raphael Caprio, Middlesex County Chosen Freeholder H. James Polos and Nancy Malool, director of the state Department of Community Affairs' Shared Services Department.

The Citizens Campaign founder Harry Pozycki said the growing municipal budgeting shortfall is a major task to fix, but he is "optimistic."

Pozycki said the solutions and best practices offered by The Citizens Campaign and their network are those that have worked in past instances. Evidence-based solutions can be highly effective in solving budgetary issues, he said.

Boxer cited examples of waste identified by his office, including the Turnpike Authority's awarding of $30 million worth of non-performance bonuses to employees, including retention and severance bonuses. The department also paid out bonuses to employees for working on their birthday, he said.

Boxer said a major question worth asking is whether municipalities have their employees enrolled in the state health care plan, or whether they use brokers to pursue private plans.

If a municipality uses a broker, they're paying for that broker to facilitate the private plan, Boxer said. However, all state employees are eligible for the state health care plan, he said, which creates a lot of potential for municipal savings.

"Cadillac health plans" are not needed for all public employees, he said.

Boxer cited the example of the Delaware River Port Authority, which ended a commission-sharing arrangement with its brokers, resulting in annual savings of more than half a million dollars a year.

Magyar presented the website he started, townstats.org, which gives users the ability to compare municipal budgets and their respective spending categories side by side.

The site currently contains the budgets for all 566 municipalities in the state for 2010 and 2011, Magyar said.

2012 budgets will be available in the next four to six weeks, he said.

For more information on the Citizens Campaign, visit http://thecitizenscampaign.org.