Team Yaede: We want to eliminate the Township Council health benefits gravy train
HAMILTON >> Talk about taxes and spending.
Politicians who serve on the part-time Hamilton Council have historically collected full-time health benefits financed by the township’s taxpayers. The longstanding practice costs tens of thousands of dollars per year, but the 2019 GOP council candidates want to eliminate the perk altogether.
“Ninety percent of the Hamilton residents have no idea council is getting full medical benefits for a job you barely consider part-time,” Rich Balgowan said Saturday in an interview. “I only found about this recently. If I knew about this back then, I would have made a stink about this. Regardless of what happened before — the Republicans were taking it before; everybody was taking it before — it’s wrong.”
“If you have benefits or your wife has benefits, you shouldn’t be taking it from our town,” Vinnie Capodanno said Saturday in an interview. “That money could be used somewhere else. It could be used for our seniors. It could be used to help some of the organizations fighting the drug epidemic.”
Balgowan and Capodanno are running on a slate with Republican Mayor Kelly Yaede, who commended both GOP council candidates for “thinking outside the box and doing their part,” saying the cost-cutting proposal “is a bold move and a step in the right direction.”
The idea, however, is not original.
The first person to blast Hamilton Council’s health insurance entitlement was GOP Councilman Ralph Mastrangelo, who raised the issue last year, the mayor said.
“Ralph Mastrangelo, given the high cost of health care, suggested the entire council forgo their health benefits given they only meet twice a month, at most, on township council,” Yaede said in an interview. “I would like to thank Councilman Mastrangelo for raising this in chambers. However, the conversation was not entertained by sitting councilmembers, especially Jeff Martin.”
Martin is Hamilton’s council president and Democratic mayoral candidate who hopes to unseat Yaede in the Nov. 5 election. He defended his choice to receive councilman-entitled health benefits and hammered the Republicans for raising the issue.
“The lies from the Yaede team are starting earlier than expected,” Martin said in a press statement. “The Republican candidates seem to forget that for years all the Republicans on council, including the Republican Chairman Dennis Pone, took taxpayer paid health benefits. They also seem to forget that they both already get free, taxpayer paid health benefits. Truly their hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
Hamilton’s 2019 userfriendly budget says Hamilton Township has four elected officials collecting family health benefits and one elected official collecting health benefits for single coverage. The userfriendly budget, however, is not accurate on the facts.
Martin is married to Scarlett Rajski, a state worker, but they do not have children. The budget gives the false impression that Martin has a child receiving township-funded health insurance along with both parents.
Democratic Hamilton Councilman Rick Tighe and Republican Mayor Yaede are both single, but the user-friendly budget erroneously suggests that one of them has enrolled into the township’s family health plan benefiting a spouse and child.
Single health coverage for elected officials is approximately $11,820, according to the budget, which suggests the estimated cost for family coverage is significantly higher.
Hamilton Council members get paid approximately $16,000 in annual salary and may enroll into the township’s medical insurance program to cover themselves and their families if they have a spouse or children.
Balgowan and Capodanno issued a press release earlier this month calling for an end to the entitlement program. They cited the 2019 user-friendly budget as the foundation of their argument, saying the full-time benefits for part-time councilmembers costs taxpayers more than $130,000.
Democratic Hamilton Council candidates Pat Papero and Nancy Phillips, who hope to get elected in November, have both harped upon the discrepancies between the budget and biographical facts.
“It is not surprising that in support of their lies, Team Yaede relied on an error-filled budget document created by the mayor’s brother-in-law,” Papero and Phillips said in a joint statement. “Given this, it’s no wonder the missing mayor had her running mates do the lying for her this time.”
Municipal employee Richard J. Mulrine, Yaede’s brother-in-law, works in the Hamilton Township finance office.
“If Team Yaede was really interested in saving taxpayer money,” Papero and Phillips said, “they should have applauded Jeff Martin and Council for saving the town over $600,000 in health insurance costs the last two years by renegotiating health premiums — something the mayor couldn’t deliver.”
Papero is a Mercer County sheriff’s officer, and Phillips is a South Brunswick School District teacher. Public employees in New Jersey must contribute a certain percentage of their health benefit premiums under a law known as Chapter 78.
Because Hamilton Council members receive approximately $16,000 in annual salary, a councilmember’s contribution to enroll into the township’s health insurance plan is relatively low compared with other public employees who collect full-time salaries.