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.

    In 2005, the Borough's State pension contribution was $175,000; in 2010, our State pension contribution is $1,600,000. That's right, nearly tenfold increase in 5 years. The increase from last year is $600,000. This is a bill we cannot control - we just get told what we have to pay. When you add in insurance, utilities and all the other cost increases we all experience in our everyday lives, you get a sense of the work we have cut out for us.

    We are working hard to change the way we operate. Last year we laid off 6 people, ordered furlough days and cut in every area - and still had a tax increase. We are trying to make additional cuts to avoid burdening our citizens. Know we are trying all the tricks, rethinking every function and scraping for every dollar. Next on the agenda is what new rules Trenton drops on us.