On June 14, after our last Commission meeting, the County Prosecutor, Warren Faulk, called me at home and asked to meet regarding the state of policing in Woodlynne after the Collingswood services end on July 3, 2010. He asked me to a meeting with a representative of the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. 

    You have certainly heard me complain about how the State has made decisions on the public pension program that increases our costs. The 2010 State budget is about to be adopted with just such a decision.  

    The Library has opened a new Teen Center on the second floor and it was done in true Collingswood fashion.

     This year has presented the worst financial conditions imaginable. The global economic recession created its own problems for us locally, while the State's economic and political changes set in motion a change in State aid and changes in accounting rules that have had an even more devastating effect. We've reexamined every operation, reconsidered every expenditure and done our most creative restructuring on all fronts to complete this budget.

    As we are working through the 2010 budget, I have learned I have been quoting some wrong pension numbers.

    By now you must be tired of all the doom and gloom accounts of budgets at every level of government, so I am not going to belabor the local budget issues we face for 2010. There is one number that says it all for me.

     There have been a number of news reports about Camden County's move to privatize the county Jail. This would mean the layoff of hundreds of Corrections officers. There has been considerable protest by the union representing the officers. There are numerous issues the County freeholders are considering as they consider these decisions.