You would think that Morristown’s town hall would be swamped with résumés.
“Chief Financial Officer” is an important post, and it pays well. The last one pulled down $137,000.
But town Administrator Michael Rogers, who on Tuesday started meeting with department heads as part of the 2012 budget process, said he’s only received a few inquiries since CFO Bob Calise recently announced his departure to take a state job in Newark.
State regulations narrow the pool of applicants, Michael explained. A CFO of a giant corporation, for example, would not be eligible without first completing eight mandatory courses in municipal finance at Rutgers University.
Michael won’t be going it alone through this budget cycle. Bob Calise, who served three different mayors during nine years in Morristown, will assist him on a part-time, interim basis.
In addition to helping prepare the municipal budget, the CFO oversees accounting, purchasing, investing and other transactions.
CONTRACTS EXPIRING
It’s too early to predict what taxpayers should expect from the next budget, Michael said. This year’s $36.5 million spending plan actually lowered the municipal tax rate by 2 cents–about $63 for someone with a house assessed at $350,000.
Contracts are expiring for all of the town’s union employees, including police and firefighters. The town’s health insurance contract also inspires in January; these costs have never come down in recent times, although employees are being required to pay for more of their coverage, Michael said.
The town also must raise money to repay itself for emergency expenditures incurred during Tropical Storm Irene and the October snowstorm. Some $90,000 in overtime–much of it by police on traffic duty when stop lights went out– was racked up during Irene, Michael said. About three-quarters of those expenses may be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he said.
The Administrator did not have snowstorm details readily available. Public works employees worked a lot of overtime in the aftermath of that storm, he said. It’s less certain whether those expenditures will be reimbursed; the federal government did not declare an emergency during that storm, Michael said.
