“I personally have no desire to see Metuchen merge with Edison,” said councilman Justin Manley at the Sept. 21 Borough Council meeting. “Consolidation in any form gets the hair on my back up. I don’t want anything to do with it, and I’m ready for a fight. It is the purpose of the cap and we know it. Given that we often appear to be a public target of consolidation by the state, I am fearful that we have to do more sooner.”

The “more” that Manley was suggesting is the formation of a finance sub-committee, under the Borough Council, that would be composed of three councilmen and the mayor. It would meet monthly over the year to brainstorm and discuss ideas and issues relating to the borough’s finances. The committee would have an advisory role only with no regulatory or oversight function over any borough department or official but would give borough officials a regular opportunity to discuss the borough’s finances year-round and not just during budget adoption time.

Manley said that the current way of discussing Metuchen’s finances does not allow for enough “debate or deliberation” where the council can “explore the ideas and talk about them.”

“I think if we had a body that was responsible for this on a more permanent basis we can begin to flesh out some of this,” he said.

Manley listed Pompton Lakes (wiki) and Madison (wiki) as examples of two municipalities with a borough form of government that have such standing finance committees. He said he used their ordinances on the matter to help him craft his suggestion.

However, the idea was met with skepticism from several councilmen.

Councilman Richard Weber suggested alternatives to a standing finance committee, such as having Borough Administrator William Boerth and the borough’s auditors present their findings to the council on a more regular basis.

“We do have auditors who we pay to do quarterly reports,” Weber said. “Maybe we should bring these people in more frequently to report to us what’s going on… so that it engages all of us to talk about these things. As [Bill Boerth] is starting to prepare the budget, maybe we should ask Bill what he has been working on the last two weeks and where he is going. It may not be easy for him to do, but if he just gives us a report on what he has been working on, it might be easier to make policy.”

The specific arguments against creating a standing finance committee were as follows:

• Is a finance committee necessary and would it add anything new to how Metuchen’s government currently functions?

“The bigger question I have is, why would we need it?” said councilman Peter Cammarano. “You are creating a committee of four people out of seven when we seem to be functioning fairly well as a group. I don’t understand where this is coming from, particularly because we are getting into areas that are executive or administrative responsibilities. In the normal course of our form of government, we have an administrator, we have assigned them duties, and we have to let him do his job”

“Quite frankly, I don’t see the need for it,” said councilman Richard Dyas. “We have a team of people who we pay to do this. I feel this is overkill really. I feel very strongly that [Bill Boerth] has done a wonderful job for the 22 or 23 years that he has been here. I think he submits excellent budgets.”

• Would a finance committee go against the borough’s ordinances and/or conflict with the work of the business administrator?

“Many of the proposed finance committee concepts are already assigned to [the business administrator] by ordinance,” said Cammarano. “The borough code spells out the duties and responsibilities of the administrator. Establishing a standing committee that would interfere with the existing borough code would be problematic.”

• Would a finance committee make things more or less fair and transparent?

“One of the things I did after receiving this was I checked with several former councilmen,” Mayor Thomas Vahalla said. “The administrator position was established in the early 1970s because… there would be one or two people doing things, with things being done behind closed doors, and then brought to the whole to vote on. I think it is very important that we continue having the discussion here with everyone’s input. We should learn from the history on why they established the administrator’s position. It didn’t become one clique or one group that was presenting something or pushing something.”

In other words, quite simply: will such a committee allow members of the council to more easily, more fairly, and on a more regular basis, discuss their ideas on how to better manage Metuchen’s finances? Is one necessary and why?

Manley may need to more specifically address the above questions in order to receive more support from the council for a standing finance committee.
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Below is the detailed suggestion for a finance committee presented by Manley at the Sept. 21 Borough Council meeting. It has not been formally introduced as an ordinance and may be revised in the future if and when the council revisits the issue:

A finance committee for the Borough of Metuchen shall:
1. be a standing committee of the Borough Council;
2. be appointed by the Mayor with advice and consent of the council;
3. be made up of three council members, with one selected as the chair;
4. include the Mayor in an ex-officio role;
5. meet monthly or at a greater frequency if required by workload;
6. report verbally to the council at least monthly via the chair’s report;
7. determine the need and nature of written financial reports to the council;
8. not have any binding authority for the borough or council;
9. have a term of one year expiring on Dec. 31 of each calendar year.

A finance committee would be responsible for:
1. the coordination of departmental budgets and the preparation of budgetary figures relating to the activities mentioned and the final preparation, explanation and continuing supervision of the entire municipal budget;
2. serving as the liaison between the council and the municipal auditor and with any other governmental body or organization on fiscal matters;
3. receive, review and present to the council the proposed budget of all borough-appointed boards and committees;
4. overseeing that all departments are in conformance with state statutes and good auditing practices;
5. all matters pertaining to any insurance coverage of the borough;
6. continually seeking and reviewing all possible departmental cost-cutting measures and revenue-generating activities of the borough;
7. continually seeking and reviewing intra- and inter-local shared services possibilities
          a) the finance committee can service as a liaison to the Board of Education.