West Deptford Passes $39M Budget After 3-Hour Meeting

Even after township residents complained about a litany of infrastructure concerns to their elected officials at the West Deptford committee meeting on Thursday, the room was silent as Committeeman Sam Cianfarini read, line by line, and as required by law, the line-item service cuts in the amended West Deptford 2013 municipal budget.

West Deptford will have 800,000 fewer dollars in its $39 million budget for 2013. That's $70,000 less available for road work, $75,000 less for solid waste collection, $60,000 less for snow removal, and $60,000 less for leaf collection.

Cianfarini characterized those cuts as fat-trimming measures, as he has previously, while on the other side of the aisle, Committeewoman Denice DiCarlo argued that essential services were being lost.

“We saved so that money is no longer going to be taxed first and sitting in the government coffer,” Cianfarini told one resident who asked whether the township would be prepared for an emergency with a diminished surplus. 

“In the event that there’s a major calamity, I can’t predict that," Cianfarini said. "Wouldn’t you rather have that money in your pocket today?”

But DiCarlo claimed that shaving so much of the budget would limit the ability of the township to hire lower-cost temporary workers to clear leaves and snow.

“When you cut the seasonal workers, you’re going to be paying overtime. We’re going backwards,” DiCarlo said.

Mayor Ray Chintall disagreed.

“I don’t believe in the concept of Chicken Little and the sky is falling,” Chintall said.

“There’s issues out there that have to be addressed, and this committee’s looking at them.”

As named Thursday, they included: a leaking roof at the RiverWinds Community Center; the replacement of high-tension wires on Jessup Road; the deteriorating conditions of Meadowcroft Road.

But West Deptford residents aired numerous other grievances Thursday night, financial and otherwise.

Communication breakdown 

Talking about a budget that dedicates $16 million, or 45 percent, to debt service infused the room with an emotional charge. 

As the township collectively confronted the realities of its financial position, that soon led to personal condemnations as well.

DiCarlo called Cianfarini’s budgeting “a train wreck,” blaming his ballon-payment restructuring of the Sunoco tax appeal for a state official's red-flagging of township finances—news that also broke at the meeting.

“We didn’t have to make that [$6 million] payment up front and basically put ourselves in this financial strait,” DiCarlo said.

“That balloon payment that was structured with Sunoco saves this town a significant amount of interest as a result of that lawsuit stretching out for over 20 years,” Cianfarini countered. 

“I embrace the state coming down here and finally looking at this township’s finances,” he said.

“I have been asking as private citizen Sam Cianfarini for the state to come step in here and address the repeated corrective services actions on our audit for years,” Cianfarini said.

“I’ve gone to the governor of this state and State Senator Sweeney, and they’ve done nothing,” he said. “So I’ll drive down there and pick them up.”

After a round of applause from supporters at that last remark, Cianfarini then went a step further.

“It’s real easy to cut a budget if you can cut waste, inefficiency and corruption,” he said—a remark that drew an immediate and heated reaction from Township Administrator Eric Campo.

“I’m not going to have my employees nor me publicly condemned by your rhetoric,” Campo said. “You will hear from my legal representation.

“If I hear another word of corruption thrown in my direction, you’re adding to my cause of action,” he said.

Campo carried on further, telling Cianfarini, “When you sit there and say that it’s sloppy budgeting to have $4 million in surplus, Standard and Poor’s disagrees with you. That shows a profound lack of understanding of the budgeting process or the municipal budget.”

The surplus spending plan is going to leave West Deptford “$3 million short next year,” Campo said, “and that’s with Mrs. [CFO Brenda] Sprigman’s analysis. And it worsens in ’15.

“And the state doesn’t come to you, Sam,” Campo said. “You go up to them.”

When pressed for comment on his allegations of corruption during the public comment portion of the meeting, Cianfarini said, “I’m not going to name names, but $4.5 million of your money is missing.”

A final thought

Despite the stridency of the proceedings, Chintall did his level best to close the meeting on a moment of reconciliation. 

“I feel like going down to Staples and getting a big rubber stamp with the letter ‘R’ and putting it on my forehead,” Chintall said.

When he walks around the township, Chintall said he feels like “I’m not the mayor. I’m just a quote-unquote-Republican.

“The upside is we’re all engaged,” he said. “I’m looking for very constructive advice.”

“There is no such thing wrong with compromising,” Chintall said. “Unfortunately we have our differences of opinion on the dais.

“There’s basically a fundamental difference we have here…on how to handle our government budgets and how to have fiscal control of that budget,” Chintall said. “I believe everybody, we’re living within our means. We’re asking the municipality to do the same.

“Forty percent of our ratable base is business,” he said, numbers he later specified as roughly $900 million of the township's $2.35 billion tax base. 

“We’re going to have to live and die by business," Chintall said. "If the taxation goes up that much each year, they’re going to pull up their stakes in a New York minute.”

As an example of the consequences of a high-tax budget, Chintall dropped a bombshell that West Deptford had lost out on the opportunity to site a premium retail outlet development that would have brought 400 construction jobs and 150 retail jobs. 

Instead, that project went to Gloucester Township.

“In my heart, I’m approving this [budget] because of the business sector,” Chintall said.

The budget passed 3-2 along party lines.