Monday, November 13, 2006
By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER
RINGWOOD -- Trimming municipal expenses is now getting personal and painful for some local officials.
Facing the impending end of the Borough Council's use of the town's health insurance plan, two council members are lobbying their colleagues for a little more time to line up private plans.
Five of the seven members of the mayor and council are using health-care benefits paid for by the borough. Facing an election year in 2007 when four seats are up for grabs, council members have all but agreed to cut those benefits, which would trim about $100,000 from the 2007 municipal budget.
But before cutting loose from the town's health plan and wading into the costly health insurance market, two of the council's three Republicans pleaded for a little more time.
"I'm just asking for benefits for one month," Councilwoman Donna Anderson said at a special meeting Thursday at which the council introduced an ordinance to ban health benefits for its members and professional consultants. The council debated whether the cutoff should take effect Jan. 1, or on Feb. 1 to accommodate Anderson and Councilman William Marsala.
A public hearing on the proposed ordinance is set for Nov. 28.
Anderson, whose husband recently retired from the borough police force, said she's gotten a new job where the health insurance coverage doesn't take effect until the end of January.
Marsala asked for a similar extension.
"I'm in a situation where there's a 30-day delay in getting a new plan," said Marsala, a lawyer in private practice.
The Democrats' response ranged from bipartisan compassion to blunt rejection.
"It's probably a hardship for all of us; I'm going to pay for it personally," said Councilwoman Wenke Taule, who cast a lone vote against the one-month extension. "I think we should just cut if off" as of Jan. 1.
Mayor Joanne Atlas said she and the other Democrats ought to treat the Republicans as fellow members of "a collegial group and be a model for how to treat each other," and extend the health benefits to Feb. 1. That move was approved 5-1. One Republican, Councilwoman Linda Schaefer, was absent.
Councilman Tom Mac Allen said he was most upset that no municipal records could be found as to when approval for council members to use the town health plan began.
The current council was severely criticized by former Mayor Jerry Holt, a Republican, for not cutting this expense from the 2006 budget. When he raised this issue last spring, Holt recalled that when Republicans were in the council majority, perhaps two council members used the health plan during a time when it was much less costly.
Citing Holt's criticism of the current council's use of the increasingly expensive health plan, Mac Allen said Thursday that "it's a dirty little secret that nobody ever seemed to vote on."
Asked about the apparent lack of a document showing when the arrangement began, Borough Attorney Joseph Maraziti Jr. told The Record it could have been done verbally years ago. Maraziti said he was asked by the current council to draft an ordinance that would put the matter on the record.
E-mail: barry@northjersey.com