COUNTY AND UNION PRESIDENTS WORKING TOGETHER 
                        TO ADDRESS $8M SHORTFALL IN 2010 BUDGET

In a statement released today, Cumberland County Freeholder Director Louis N. Magazzu and County Administrator Ken Mecouch said that they met with presidents and other leaders of County bargaining units. The purpose of the afternoon meeting was to address the preliminary estimate shortfall of between $4.8M to $8.1M in the 2010 County budget which anticipates either less or flat growth of County ratables.
The deficit projection is also before the County finance committee has an opportunity to consider the spending requests previously submitted by County department heads. Magazzu noted that for the last two years, department and division heads have for the most part honored the request by the Freeholder Board that their budgets be 5% smaller than last year in areas not involving wage, salary and benefit expenses. The annual increase of those obligations are covered under separately negotiated contracts. 

The meeting provided an opportunity for both the County government and the leaders of the bargaining units which represent Cumberland County employees to discuss the potential scenarios that could be considered as a framework toward balancing the 2010 County budget. Magazzu revealed that he provided several scenarios to the union leaders on methods to deal with the budget shortfall. These scenario's have been developed by the County finance department and have been reviewed with each of the Freeholders and Freeholder-elect Tom Sheppard. The scenarios offer numerous options which include savings based upon projected furloughs, layoffs, wage freezes, health insurance changes and other concessions to reduce the deficit faced by the County. Magazzu has directed that all of the scenario's be posted on the County web-site under the heading "budget cuts". 

Magazzu has also asked that the bargaining units consider waiving the contractual raises to go into effect on January 1, 2010 in a way which would extend all contracts for one year. He promised to revisit this if the economic conditions dramatically improve. Any other concessions would be dependent on the ability of the Freeholder Board to reduce other expenditures. Magazzu added, " I think layoffs hurt the County as well as the person who is laid off. The Freeholder Board did that in 1999 and the County suffered for many years thereafter as a result. I would much rather see a balance of other concessions by all parties as well as reductions in county discretionary spending, with layoffs being our last and final option". “We are hopeful that discussions will continue in a cooperative effort to identify the least painful approach to balancing the budget, and we hope the various unions will be able to accommodate changes for next year,” said Director Magazzu. 

Magazzu also announced that the format of budget hearings would be different this year in that there would be several days of hearings spread over a number of weeks where each department and division head would need to go in great detail about the need for all requests.