Four candidates running for Burlco freeholder

The four candidates running for Burlington County freeholder all want to cut spending, review county operations for waste, and attract new businesses.

Republicans Mary Ann O'Brien and Bruce Garganio and Democrats Kimberly Kersey and Jim Bernard also agree that keeping taxes low is a priority.

But the slates propose different ways to go about it as they pursue two open positions on the five-member freeholder board.

The candidates, none of whom is an incumbent, are campaigning against a backdrop of financial strain. As officials negotiated the county's 2009 budget, they faced a $9 million revenue shortfall and narrowly averted laying off 50 employees. The freeholders eventually adopted a $224 million budget that lowered the tax levy by $368,000, but have warned of another shortfall next year.

O'Brien and Garganio propose having county employees pay 20 percent of their health-care costs; workers now are responsible only for co-pays. They want to freeze the wages of all employees - a measure enacted this year only for those who earn over $50,000 - and to end a policy that allows departing workers to receive up to $15,000 for accumulated sick time.

The Republicans want an independent audit of county operations to look for additional cuts.

"We need a fresh look at everything," said O'Brien, 51, a first-term Medford councilwoman and an attorney for Crammer, Bishop, Marczyk & O'Brien.

"Smaller government is better," and lowering taxes isn't impossible, said Garganio, 47, a union carpenter who has served as a Florence councilman since 1998.

Democrats want to cut salaries for all political appointees: by 25 percent for those who earn at least $100,000; 15 percent for those who make between $75,000 and $99,999; 10 percent for those who make between $50,000 and $74,999; and 5 percent for those who earn between $30,000 and $49,999.

They point out that a county employee recently was arrested for allegedly stealing public funds and say they would follow the lead of Mercer County by appointing an inspector general to uncover waste and fraud.

And, noting that the tax imposed by municipalities constitutes a larger portion of residents' overall tax bill than the county's levy, they propose to economize by consolidating - or at least regionalizing - local services such as fleet maintenance, public works, and tax assessment.

"A lot of us work in the private sector, and we're learning to do more with less. . . . County government has to do the same thing," said Kersey, 39, corporate counsel for the engineering firm CMX and a first-term Mount Holly councilwoman.

"We would like the size of the county government to be cut," said Bernard, 40, a telecommunications technician for NetVersant through the electrical workers union.

The Nov. 3 election will decide which party holds a majority on the freeholder board, now dominated 3-2 by Republicans. Control was last up for grabs in 1982.

Republican Freeholders Bill Haines and Jim Wujcik are not seeking reelection after more than a decade on the board. The board's two Democrats were voted into office in 2008 for three-year terms.

The Democratic candidates have pressed the need for new leaders to lower spending and bring ethics reform and transparency to a county ruled by Republicans for three decades.

"We're committed to hunting, finding, and solving the problems in county government," Kersey said. "The Republicans historically have been content to push off problems."

The Republican candidates described their platform as superior for its cost-saving measures. The plan can be viewed at www.burlcotaxcutters.com; the Democrats' strategy is at www.changeburlconow.com.

"We put out a detailed plan that really charts the direction for Burlington County," Garganio said.

To boost the local economy, he and O'Brien said they would aggressively market on the Web "business-ready" sites in the county. They have proposed surveying businesses about workforce needs and using grants to fund corresponding job training at area schools.

The goal is to devise programs "so that people who maybe have been laid off can be trained in other areas that are desired and needed," O'Brien said.

The Republicans want to make the county an environmental leader by updating an energy master plan every three years and using renewable energy for all county buildings, which would save on utility costs. County officials last month approved their first such project, for installation of solar panels on a county office building in Mount Holly.

Garganio and O'Brien want towns to use services offered by the Burlington County Bridge Commission, which handles much of the county's economic development, to obtain state grants for energy audits of municipal buildings. They want the commission to help finance installation of green technology by private companies.

Democrats, for their part, want to hold an economic development summit at which businesses, labor leaders, and local officials could discuss what each town has to offer in economic development. A focus would be the Route 130 corridor and riverfront.

Ideas, including those for shared services, should be enacted quickly, Kersey said.

"We need to stop studying and just start doing," she said.

Democrats want to make the government more open to the public. Kersey and Bernard said they would post more public documents online, televise freeholder meetings, and hold more of those meetings at night and in towns across the county, not just Mount Holly.

They want to further limit campaign contributions that county candidates can accept from county vendors. Year after year, Burlington County Republicans' campaigns have mostly been bankrolled by firms with county contracts, though Democrats also accept donations from vendors who do business in towns where the party has a majority, records show.

O'Brien and Garganio instead propose a vendor code of conduct. They also pledge to serve no more than 12 years if elected.