West Deptford Committee Moves to Slash Own Salaries
An amendment passed Thursday night would knock all committee members down to $5,000 annually.
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It’s not every day an amendment to an ordinance brings about applause.
But when West Deptford township committee members hauled out the administrative axe and moved to hack committee members’ pay Thursday night, that’s exactly what happened.
Democrat Denice DiCarlo broached the idea initially, bringing up the high-end range of salaries from last year’s salary ordinance, and proposed cutting them all significantly.
“It’s time we take some action to decrease the mayor and the township committee’s salaries,” she said, noting the committee is the highest-paid in Gloucester County. “We need to give a little bit of relief to the taxpayers.”
Her proposal was to knock the mayor’s salary down to $6,000 and township committee down to $5,500, down from the current $11,300 for the mayor and $9,500 for township committee members.
Republican Sam Cianfarini immediately one-upped her, proposing the bar be set even lower—$5,000 annually for all committee members, including the mayor.
It was a move DiCarlo quickly adopted, first seconding Cianfarini’s lower proposal, then cutting through Robert’s Rules to drop her first motion and amend it to the lower.
That amendment immediately passed with a unanimous vote.
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West Deptford Township Municipal Building
400 Crown Point Rd, West Deptford, NJ
John Hayden
3:13 pm on Sunday, February 5, 2012
Glad to hear that the committee is following the demands of the residents.
I'd like to extend an "atta-boy" to all five members of the committee for doing the right thing.
Now, if we could only get the nine members of the school board to do the same...
John
9:21 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
$10,800 a year in savings is a good start and a nice gesture, I'll give them that. Hopefully they have bigger/deeper changes/cuts in mind to even put a dent in the massive $130 million we are in debt as a township. I look forward to hearing more about pursuing new business opportunities and new cost cutting measures to keep our taxes down and to reduce our over sky high debt we have piled on over the years.
John Hayden
10:01 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
You might want to recheck your math. 4 committee members times $4,500 plus 1 mayor times $6,300 is $24,300 in savings.
Not that $25K makes a difference in the $130M, but if they started cutting everywhere else and not their own salaries, people would be rightfully up in arms.
John
10:16 am on Monday, February 6, 2012
You are right John, not enough coffee this morning. I just calculated on the mayor's salary and one committee member. I forgot about the other 4 committee members by accident. Hopefully you still got the main point I was trying to make which is that we have a long way to go. Its a great first step.
WDNeedsHelp
9:55 pm on Monday, February 6, 2012
Folks, it's the simple fact that you stop the bleeding now matter where it occurs or how much or the body as a whole will die. The new Republican leadership knows this and ran on it as their platform and has kept their word by cutting every chance they can. Let's see what happens after the first year, I think we will be very pleased with the savings they create.
Samuel Rickenboch
11:15 am on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Sam Cianfarini aka "WDNeedsHelp", if you stop using your repetitive phrases such as "folks" and "ladies and gentlemen" we wouldn't know it's you. But since you are the only person that refers to people as "folks" and said it 100 times at the debate, it's very obvious. You are a sitting councilman, have some courage and use your real name.
Bill Bondar
1:10 pm on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
"Ladies and Gentlemen", I would hope that Sam Cianfarini has more important issues to attend to other than bantering back and forth in a public forum. Most "Folks" that have lots of time on their hands tend to gather at these forums to post. That would be me. WDNeedsHelp, and it received that help by will of the voters in the last election. Thank you "Ladies and Gentlemen", You "Folks" have a nice day.