Council listens to pleas to retain 25 positions

BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

HOWELL — It appears that at least one township employee whose job was on the chopping block may be spared the budgetary ax that was set to swipe away her position.

Housing inspector Patricia Hoover’s employment may not be terminated along with other jobs being eliminated by the mayor and Township Council in the 2005 municipal budget. Officials have said Hoover’s job and 24 other positions (a combination of part-time and full-time jobs) would be eliminated effective July 1.

However, Township Manager Bruce Davis confirmed to the Tri-Town News this week that Hoover’s job as a continuing certificate of occupancy inspector was re-evaluated and determined to be a “cost-neutral operation” due to the fees that homeowners pay for the inspection.

Davis said it was possible the council might decide as soon as this week to rescind the decision to terminate Hoover’s 21-year employment with Howell.

The decision to cut Hoover’s position had been criticized as having a potentially negative effect with regard to maintaining housing standards and curbing homeowner abuses such as illegal rental conversions in residential basements and garages.

Local real estate agent and Howell resident Mark Krupnick told the mayor and council at a May 17 public meeting that keeping Hoover was necessary because “prevention is better than correction.”

A final public hearing and adoption of the 2005 municipal budget is scheduled for June 14. A special public hearing on the budget was held May 25.

Also held in abeyance at the May 17 meeting and as of press time Tuesday was the passage of a resolution that would have handed over the duties of Howell’s welfare department to Monmouth County.

Mayor Joseph M. DiBella said he had received a letter from Monmouth County Welfare Director Sharon Ferdinand who promised Howell residents “one-stop shopping” if the county takes over Howell’s welfare needs.

DiBella said this was because residents already have to travel to Freehold in order to process the paperwork necessary to register for welfare assistance.

Following an appeal from Sharon Meyers, Howell’s welfare director, as well as some residents, the council decided to pull the resolution from the May 17 consent agenda and look into information Meyers made available regarding the services she provides on a part-time basis.

Meyers told the council that county support agencies are already “bursting at the seams.” She asked council members to reconsider cutting her position and the entire Youth and Family Services Department run by Holli Toline, which is also on the chopping block.

Also on May 17, Toline made a some-times emotional appeal to the mayor and council to retain her department for the good of the community.

“The services we provide are provided by licensed and certified therapists. These services cannot, by law, be provided by volunteers unless they are licensed by the state of New Jersey,” Toline said. “We are not a referral service. We provide comprehensive counseling, mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, crisis intervention and response, and prevention and intervention. These services are not duplicated by any county agency and cannot be duplicated by volunteers. We are interwoven into the very fabric of the community.”

Toline has headed the Youth and Family Services Department, which is a state-licensed outpatient rehabilitation facility, for more than 20 years.

Toline told the Tri-Town News she has informed municipal officials of her concerns over who will assume the custody of confidential patient records that are now housed in her department. She said federal mandates dictate that the contents of all mental health records be confidentially maintained for seven years with the “face sheets” needing to be maintained for 10 years.

Toline said the mandate stipulates the records must be “maintained in a secure environment and accessed only by someone with the [patient’s] signed release,” in other words, the licensed therapists who comprise Toline’s treatment team.

Toline said she will be asking the mayor and council members for assurances she can give the public that the records will be properly maintained under the federal guidelines.

Also heard from at the May 17 meeting were several staff members from Howell High School who spoke of the critical need to keep Toline’s department open and functioning as a mental health resource.

One big difference between the May 17 meeting and the previous week was that on May 17, all those who spoke were against the proposed cuts, as opposed to the May 10 meeting when United Republican Club constituents spoke on behalf of the all-Republican governing body’s proposed job cuts.

One prominent Republican who spoke against the cuts cautioned the mayor and council they would “rue the day” they decided to eliminate Toline’s department. George Krebs has led the Howell Sports Federation for years and has been involved with youth organizations. He said he knows the importance of the Youth and Family Services Department to the children of Howell.

“These cuts are a knife in the heart of the very spirit of this town. I don’t think we can do without [Youth and Family Services],” Krebs said.

In 2004, Howell Youth and Family Services received $74,669 from the county and state, according to Toline. The total payroll for the department, which consists of six treatment personnel, one administrative assistant and Toline, is $393,468.

The rest of the intended cuts include three employees at the senior citizens center; one person from recreation; seven personnel from parks, recreation and grounds; two employees from the public works departments; one person from the municipal clerk’s office; and two from the land use office (including Hoover).

Council members have said the personnel reductions are needed to control municipal spending. Cutting the 25 jobs is expected to shave 1.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation off of this year’s projected municipal tax increase. Instead of paying $120 more in municipal taxes this year, the owner of a home assessed at $200,000 will pay $90 more, a savings of $30. The owner of a home assessed at $300,000 will pay $135 more in municipal taxes this year, instead of paying $180 more, a savings of $45.

The job cuts were expected to be the subject of another demonstration at last night’s special budget workshop meeting by union members who have picketed at the last two council meetings held since the job cuts were announced earlier this month.

Transport Workers Union President Christopher Mikkelson reiterated this week that if the mayor and council members did not agree on May 25 to rescind all of the job cuts, there will likely be one or more protests held at the mayor’s home sometime prior to the June 14 adoption of the budget.