Township Committee approved at the March 18th General Session, the Minutes of the September 18th, 2007 General Session Meeting. That means that the clerk Linda Dougherty, is five months behind on the meeting minutes for Township Committee.
The Township Committee's solution is to hire an additional clerk.
Now maybe I am a little slow on the uptake, but how is it that we have a Municipal Clerk (Linda Dougherty paid 60+K highest in the county for our size ), and 2 Assistant Clerks to help Linda and they can't keep up with the meeting minutes. Now keep in mind that years ago the township had a higher population and the Clerks were able to produce the minutes for the following meeting. Not only could they do this, is was done with half the Clerical Staff that the township presently has.
Keep in mind, you tax increases of the past several years, and the potential this year of an additional large tax increase, and our committee continues to hire. Does this make sense in a year when we are looking at a large decrease in State Aid, large increases for items like gas for the police cars and Public Works vehicles, Gas and Electric and Personal wage increases?
If there is anything that shows the lack of accountability, management, and concern for the taxpayer, it is this action.
Something is very wrong with the management of our township government, and if changes are not made soon to correct this, we may have a serious exodus of our seniors, who help make this town a great place to live, along with our young families, both who are struggling to pay their bills and taxes.
There is no reason to hire additional people to do the work that our highly paid Clerk should be doing. All it will do is add to the tax burden and will not get the minutes typed any sooner.
The Township Committee is having the first 2008 budget meeting next Tuesday, March 25th, I assume at 7PM (the date & time are not listed on the Twp Web Site), but call the Twp. to confirm. Ask the committee this question. Why do we have twice the number of Clerks (3+1), less population in town, and still can't get the work completed, that was done by 1 Full Time Clerk and 1 Part Time Clerk?
If you keep voting for this Click, then don't complain about your taxes, or the way you are treated by the Township Inspectors. I know, if you are a personal friend of township committee members, you don't have to worry about the Inspectors, but you still have to pay the higher property taxes. Remember that Silver Park Residents when you ask why your taxed so much.
The Edgewater Park Reporter
4 comments:
WAKE UP RESIDENTS! After reading this I can't believe that our town council is going to approve the hiring of another tonwnship employee. In light of what is going on with the states finances and the state cutting aid to smaller towns edgewater is going to have the nerve to hire someone else. Most towns are now talking about cutting jobs to save money but not edgewater. NO we need to hire, who cares if it effects the residents taxes. We need to be heard in November and vote someone in who has the tax payers best interest.
PLEASE remember this at election time. Thank you ep reporter for this knowledge. I did not attend the meeting tuesday, but find this information to be very helpful. First of all it's unreal to me that the minutes from September have not even been approved until now and now they want to hire more help in the township office! Maybe they should find someone who can handle the job like they've had in the past instead of hiring more and more people to do one persons job.
Why did it take so long to approve the minutes? Were they AMMENDED minutes? Were the minutes from Nov-Feb approved yet? Were they just overlooked?
Why did it take so long? (Even though they have up to a year to approve them.)
Has anyone looked into the absentee record of our administrator/clerk lately, especially since she bought her bar in Burlington? Maybe if she came to work more often she would be able to type the minutes herself. Ever notice that the day after township meeting nights the admin./clerk is either very late coming in or not in at all. I thought she was a salary employee, so how come she gets to offset her day hours due to her night hours; that's why she paid so much to begin with. Maybe we shouldn't be paying her over 90K for both jobs because we're certainly not getting 16 workhours/day out of her if she needs all these assistants to do her work for her while she's helping to the bar too. Somebody on Committee look into this will you,start doing your jobs too and e accountable for our tax dollars.
For information: the administrative staff actually has less employees in the office than in 1997. With the combination of Administrator and Municipal Clerk and the addition of Deputy Clerk the positions represent Administrator and Municipal Clerk: Still just two positions. The 2nd Deputy is a stipend position (approximately $1000) not a full time or even part-time position. Also there use to be a tax clerk but not anymore. Just thought you might want to know for your information. The table below shows the number of employees.
2008 administrative employees
Administrator/Municipal Clerk (Linda Dougherty)
Deputy Clerk (Kathryn Harris)
Clerk Typist (payroll) (Debbie Cunningham)
Clerk Typist (accounts payable) (Peggy Peak)
Tax Collector/2nd Deputy (Tanyika Johns)
Clerk Typist (construction) (Sheri Hannah)
1997 administrative employees
Administrator (Paul Guidry/June Madden 1999)
Municipal Clerk (part-time) (1997-1998 (9-3) (Melinda Robinson)) 1999 (full time)Linda Dougherty
Clerk Typist (payroll) (Lois Treankner)
Clerk Typist (accounts payable) (Jane Wallace)
Tax Collector (Laverna Hanzcar)
Tax Clerk (Kathy Ott)
Clerk Typist (construction) (Tanyika Johns)
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