City Council Actions: 

1. During their reorganization meeting on January 1, the new City Council adopts several recommendations by the CMTPA to enhance the transparency and public accountability of their actions on our behalf.
   
   These include:

• A resolution to require Council to release more timely and more detailed agenda for their meetings.
   
• Resolution requiring that the meetings of ALL city boards, commissions and advisory committee be Live Streamed and posted on the City Website.
   
• Several resolutions to begin the process of restructuring of the City's Advisory Committee process.
   
• These resolutions are available on the City Website, capemaycity.com and the CMTPA Transparency recommendations are available at capemaytaxpayers.com.  The Council is also preparing several more actions in response to the CMTPA recommendations.

2. Council also acted swiftly to appoint the Municipal Taxation and Revenue Advisory Committee. The CMTPA first recommended the formation of this committee in 2019 to conduct a comprehensive and objective examination of the way the City raises revenue, and to craft progressive recommendations to improve that process.
    
3. Council also acted to reverse the actions of the previous Council which placed 10.5 acres of city owned land adjacent to the Sewell Tract on the Recreation and Open Space Inventory (ROSI), thus restoring city control of that land. The litigation over the Sewell Tract is ongoing.
    
4. Council hired Rob Conley Architect for the design and introduced an ordinance authorizing the funding of the new Firehouse at a maximum cost of $5,000,000. Passage is expected at the February 16 Council Meeting, following a Public Hearing at that meeting. Be sure to view this important meeting on the City's Facebook page "Cape May, NJ COVID" (@capemaycitycovidinfo)
    

2021 Budget

Two issues loom large in the coming proposed budget for 2021:

1. To cope with the realities of 2020, the city was forced to rely of an array of fiscal maneuvers to stabilize a budget built far before Covid. Reducing or postponing planned spending, adjusting to revenue shortfalls, and reallocating account balances are just some of the actions taken to produce a patchwork budget. The 2021 budget will have to right that ship. Stay tuned for details in the next six weeks.
    
2. There are six collective bargaining units in Cape May Municipal Government. The contracts with five of those units expired on December 31, 2020. The negotiation process to renew these will have a significant impact on Cape May Budget for several years to come.

To begin an understanding of that impact, CMPTA turned to the "User Friendly Budget" for 2020 and 2016 which are available on the City Website. This is a statutorily mandated report that gives a general overview of revenue and spending by the City of Cape May.

Data posted in reports for 2016 and 2020 shows that the following has occurred regarding Municipal Personnel and Staffing:

1. The total number of employees has been reduced by 56.5%, with fulltime staff increased 6.4%, while Part Time staffing is down 88%. (CHART 1)
    

1. The decline in staffing levels is apparently due in large part to the elimination of part time positions without equivalent increases in full time positions.
    
2. The cost of municipal employee services has increased 6.5% to $14,468,655 and is a figure equal to 70% of the General Operating Budget. (CHART 1)
    
3. The decrease of 56.5% in personnel has likely had an impact on the availability and quality of municipal services. Those diminished services are costing a million dollars more than 4 years ago.
    
4. Overtime costs, primarily in Police and Fire, have increased 27.5% (CHART 2)
    
5. In addition to base salary, employees also receive a package of benefits including overtime, pension, health and welfare coverage, employment taxes, leave provisions, and misc. compensations and benefits. The Aggregate Cost of these benefits is an additional compensation of from 8% to 80% of the base salary in all employee groups. (CHART 3)
    
6. For 2020, the aggregate per capita cost of municipal employees ranges from $13,026 for each member of the City Council to $145,721 for each member of the Police Department. This represents a shift range of from -8% to +375% over 2016 per capita cost. Fewer people making more money. (CHART 4)
    

Chart 1

Chart 2

Chart 3

Chart 4