Boundless Budget Questions

During last week's township committee meeting, I pointed out that budgeted headcount from the township's own documents showed that Bridgewater reduced the headcount of non-police rank-and-file employees from a budgeted 142 in 2023 to 96 in 2024.

At the same time, Bridgewater's budgets from the prior two years indicates that the number of supervisory staff increased from 12 in 2023 to 21 in 2024. This addition of nine members of supervisory staff came at a cost to the Bridgewater taxpayers of approximately $1.3 million.

Don't just take my word for it, have a look yourself at the township's published budget documents. The "Budgeted Personnel Costs" on sheet UFB-7 of the respective years' User Friendly Budget files clearly show the differences in number of employees.

Mayor Matthew Moench was quick to insist that these were not layoffs and that the difference may have been eliminated positions, unfilled positions, attrition, or retirements, though without offering any specifics. However, he did not have an explanation for the increase in supervisor staff.

Even if we give the mayor the benefit of the doubt, and accept that these positions were merely budgeted but not filled or vacated during the year, it still answer why there was an increase in supervisory staff. It simply does not make sense to add more management when the rest of the workforce has shrunk.

The mayor also disputed my observation that the tax levy increase of nearly $2.9 million from 2023 to 2024 was related to an increase in spending by the township. But according to the township's own budget documents, appropriations ("General Budget" column on sheet UFB-3) increased by about $2 million year-over-year. It is clearly not an issue of a shortfall of non-tax revenue that had to be made up with an increase of taxes, as the mayor claimed.