Joshi's May 19th $158.1m 2022 Budget Presentation - a Budget to be avoided, just like he should of been in November.

Well, not for nothing but apparently Mayor Sam 'Mr. Shrink-flation' Joshi can't even adequately explain what's in his own budget - that's not surprising, he probably doesn't know what's in it, even with help he had at his side.

Disconcerting to say the least but, like I said, not surprising. 

But even more disturbing are these combined Council meetings where no Department heads are available to the Council and public time is limited and stuff always being added at the last minute. 

There's another one tomorrow night (May 23rd).

Even more disturbing that having a combined Council Meeting tomorrow night is that they still haven't even posted the agenda for the meeting on the website yet - and the meeting is tomorrow.

Seriously?!? What kind of Administration is going on here?

You can imagine what must be on that agenda if they're not posting it yet.

Geez, here's a thought for the all-Dem Council about their responsibilities to review this budget after watching all this secretive nonsense go on about this ridiculous Muni-budget for 2022:

 

Anyhoo, let's see if Pay Raises all around for the Mayor and Council show up on this agenda.

CY 2022 $158.1m Muni Budget - Bad enough it comes with an Unnecessary tax increase (with inflation out of control) but no detail to boot?!?

 Update: Received the response to my 2nd OPRA Request seeking the number of additions and deletions to the headcount for each of the 33 Departments/Divisions with payroll. Was told No such documents exist again. There are certainly headcount additions in this 2022 Muni Budget. Guess they're saying they have no support available to the Public to back up the numbers in this  2022 Muni Budget.

Well, Edison's CY 2022 $158.1 million Muni Budget (86 pages in a format not friendly to everyday people) has $70.9 million in Salary & Wages or 45% of the total Muni Budget. So, it's not unreasonable to ask for some information about that $70.9 million. It is up by $2.6 million over last year's $68.3 million.

You really can't understand these numbers they are budgeting unless you can see what the changes are, where they are and why? Unless you can reconcile the change from year-to-year, you don't really have a budget that has any credibility or believability. 

There are 33 Departments/Divisions with Salary and Wages totaling $70.9 million in this CY 2022 Muni Budget.

I made an OPRA Request to understand how we went from $68.3 million to $70.9 million by asking for the analysis of the changes in just the headcount for each of the 33 Departments/Divisions.

I was told that no such document exists. Well, that's interesting. You really can't build a budget unless you know how many heads you're going to add, the transfers in and out and how many will be leaving, etc. They obviously know that - just look at the Admin Department with all the new additions.

All right, let's assume they don't have an 'analysis' of the headcount changes. Surely, they have to know what's being added and deleted in each Department/Division. They have to provide for it in each Department/Division in the CY 2022 Muni Budget.

So, I made another OPRA Request for the individual elements of the changes and I'll do the 'analysis' myself - if I get it.

So, while I wait for their response on the elements, here's what's missing (!?) from their CY 2022 Muni Budget, without which they will be unable to support the $70.9 million in Salary & Wages they are budgeting:

Here's the 33 Departments/Divisions with Wage & Salaries in the CY 2022 Muni Budget totaling $70.9 million again:

Geez, it they won't provide basic detail on the payroll changes, can you imagine what's in the changes for the 'Other expenses' in this CY 2022 Muni Budget?!?

Anyhoo, got to like the transparency in providing information about their CY 2022 Muni Budget.

Edison's $158.1 million CY 2022 Muni Budget Appropriations

Well, Muni appropriations are $158,105,288 in the CY 2022 Muni Budget, which are up $7,560,743 over Last Year's $150,544,545. Put together an Excel Table for the total appropriations (both within and excluded from the cap and those offset by revenues) by Department, Office and Category comparing 2022 to 2021 to make it easier to see what and where the changes are from 2021.  

You can sort this table by any of those headings to see what you want to see. For example, I sorted the table below to get the Salaries & Wages in all Departments in this CY 2022 Muni Budget.

Normally, I would just upload the Excel file to share it but this Blog doesn't handle drop down boxes so I can't upload it. 

Anyone who wishes a copy of the Excel file, just drop me a note at the 'Email Me' button at the top of this blog and I'll be happy to share it with you.

Wages & Salaries in all Departments $70,875,213:

Anyhoo, hope it makes it easier to determine what questions you might want to raise about this $158.1 million CY 2022 Muni Budget.

What Edison Mayor Sam 'Mr. Shrink-flation' Joshi's $158.1 million Muni-budget for 2022 means to You

 Well, take it they don’t want to tell you yet that with all that money available for the 2022 Muni- budget, they’re funding their own unnecessary increases and excesses rather than providing any taxpayer relief.

Geez, wonder if he'll vote against his own budget? Seems he thought that voting against Muni tax hikes when he was on the Council and campaigning for Mayor qualified him to be Mayor.

Here's what this proposed $158.1 million taxpayer unfriendly Muni-budget for 2022 means to you - as it stands now:

Anyhoo, let's hope the Edison Council does its due diligence and not pay attention to the blatant token Council salary increases also included in this budget.

Top 10 Taxpayer Cost Saving Suggestions before Mayor Sam 'Mr. Shrink-flation' Joshi's $158.1 million 2022 Muni-budget presentation on May 19th

10. Just copy Lankey's Muni-budget presentation from last year and just change the numbers. It'll save on all the high-tech and political Dem-party hypocritical hyperbole in his Ridiculously taxpayer unfriendly 86-page budget, since it will just be the same Dem-party nonsense, just with less content. 

9. Have 'Mr. Shrink-flation' get a 'Mayor Joshi' tattoo stamped on his forehead, so everybody knows he's Mayor when he is out and about town. It'll save a small fortune on his 'Mayor Joshi' monogrammed underwear, shirts, shoes, sneakers, socks, sweaters, hoodies, jackets, winter coats and personalized license plates.

8. Purchase a set of 'Walkie-talkies' for the $100,000 Chief of Staff Bob 'See No Conflict' Diehl so he can get his orders directly from the County and save that $110,000 we're paying for 'Mr. Shrink-flation's' new Admin Officer who's there in case he needs to go around the County (like he did the EDO) after the County is done using him and dumps him after one-term. Got to be cheaper than all those cell phone bills from the County.

7. Go out and hedge against that Edison 1-Cent Open Space 'Forever' tax mistake and use the money to get to the bottom of that 2017 Racist Flyer. Should be a ton of savings there and the best return on investment we could ever make in this politically corrupt one-party town.

6. Enter into a 'Shared-services Agreement' with the Edison Board of Mythomania, aka Board of Ed-Dems, Board of Dysfunction, Board of WhatsApp to get back some of all that taxpayer money they've been Hoarding all these years and if the town doesn't help getting a new school built to address the Overcrowding, then use it to fund the Edison Wards Movement.

5. Eliminate the $60,000 position for Social Media Presence and just have Charlie 'I Abstain' Tomaro and Rob 'Mr. Temper-a-Ment' Karabinchak go around town with him with their matching JPS Hall of Honor t-shirts. That should make for an increased presence by getting a Huge amount of attention and unbelievable looks.

4. Spend some capital improvement money and get rid of those seriously annoying and unnecessary brick bump-outs in the tip-toe through the tulips sections of Clara Barton and get a refund from Charlie 'I Abstain' Tomaro.

3. Create a new Division of Constituent Relations, call it 'Pitfalls of Voting Straight Down the Party-Line' and have 'Mr. Shrink-flation' head it up. Everybody who comes in and visits him can see it immediately. Enough said.

2. Take that $37,000 being spend on Broadband and instead buy $1,000 worth of rubber bands and give one out to each person in town to hold his 86-page Muni-budget together while they're trying to wrap their head around it. At least when that rubber band snaps back at you when you try and wrap up this garbage, it won't be as painful as it will get with this waste of money going forward.

1. Budgets are just somebody's vision of what they want to do. Since it's now the County's vision of what Edison should be and look like in 2022, then no need for the middleman to be rewarded for selling out he People of Edison. Eliminate 'Mr. Shrink-flation's' sneaky attempt to give himself a Big Salary increase in the 2022 Muni-budget just for being a Malleable Marionette of the Powers that be from Outside of town.