Is this Legal?

Recently it was announced that in the interest of saving money on utility bills, the borough of Dumont changed electric power supplier from Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) to Viridian Energy.

The availability of third party power suppliers have become abundant recently as electrical power prices on the open market have declined to a level where resellers can still make a profit while claiming to save the consumer money over the local incumbent electrical power supplier, which is PSE&G.

There is nothing wrong in saving money, so what can go wrong? For one, Dumont is now paying "market rates" for electricity, which means if the "market" goes haywire and prices spike into space, the borough (and consequently taxpayers) will be stuck with the bill. Meanwhile, PSE&G has announced a rate decrease. Will there be any cost savings left?

Unlike you or I; however, the borough cannot just arbitrarily change vendors. In an article published by the NJ League of Municipalities in which Dumont is a member:

First, it is important to emphasize that the procurement of power supply must be consistent with the Local Public Contracts Law (LPCL). The bottom line is: when the estimated amount of spending for power supply is above the municipality’s bid threshold, power supply must be publicly bid or purchased subject to an exception to the bid law.

Under the LPCL, power purchases from regulated public utilities that use their BGS-FP tariff are exempt from bidding. And while there are several other public bidding exemptions on the books that apply to unique electricity purchasing scenarios, none of these is applicable to purchasing retail supply from a TPS. In other words, procuring power supply from a TPS (directly or through a broker) requires a public bid. Moreover, for electric accounts large enough to warrant attention from a third-party supplier, the contract value will be above the bid threshold.


Also to be considered is the time and cost aspects of preparing bid specifications and conducting the bidding process. This can be a time-consuming and possibly labor-intensive process. Municipal officials should carefully consider all these factors in determining whether they should proceed with a public bid or stick with the BGS-FP tariff.

In awarding the electric supply contract to Viridian Energy, did the borough of Dumont:

• Prepare Bid Specifications? No
• Approve resolution for public bidding? No
• Receive evaluated bids? No
• Prepare decision matrix of bidders based on bid specifications? No
• Choose winning bidder based on decision matrix? No
• If claiming exemption from public bid, request authorization per statute? No
• Approve resolution awarding electric supply to Viridian Energy? No

From a practical perspective, how does Dumont Boro know they signed with the lowest cost vendor if there was no documented evidence of shopping around for the best deal?  According to the borough attorney, this award was legal.

I ask again - is this legal?

Trouble Paying Bills? So seems Dumont.

It seems for that for those who have trouble keeping up with the utility bills, you are not alone. It appears that borough hall is having trouble paying them too. It seems that for some months the bill is not paid at all...

PSEG 2010 Statements

As you are looking through them, you may have noticed empty pages. According to the borough clerk for some pages

Finance is having trouble locating the June statement and has requested a copy from PSE&G. PSE&G said they would mail it and as soon as we receive it I will forward to you.

Why are bills that are just months old missing? Is the finance department having trouble with record keeping? This does not look very good for a department who was cited in 2009 and again in 2010 for:

Internal controls regarding the preparation of the Borough's general ledger be reviewed to ensure that the general ledgers are complete and reconciled with the subsidiary ledgers and records on a monthly basis

by the external auditor. In other words, the bills were not being paid on time. Meanwhile the clerk advises

any bills which have shut-off notice is due to the receipt of the bill after the bills list has been generated

Huh?  Does that square with the bills list approved by the third Tuesday of each and every month?  Why were there no payments in some months?  Does this pattern represent a borough in healthy financial condition?

Where was the CFO?  Where was the oversight from our council's finance chair in those years? I hope this year's finance chair can get a handle on what's going on in the finance department.

Did you see Sunday's Record Article on PSE&G proposing to report 60+ day delinquent payers to credit reporting agencies?  What do think that will happen to Dumont's AA ratings from S&P?  How much more will Dumont's future borrowing costs multiply once this payment record is known to lenders?

UPDATE: Duplicate statements (presumably replacing the ones missing) are located here.

Happy New Year 2011!

What will the new year bring...

Honesty, Integrity and Reliability,
Mistrust, Misunderstanding and Obliqueness, or
Deception, Fraud and Thievery?

For whatever it's worth, I predict 2011 will be an interesting year with full of surprises.  Hey, what do I know...

Anyway, wishing everyone in Dumont and the followers via blip, twitter, scribd and youtube a Happy 2011!

DPW Site Contamination: Announcement and Observation

The October 19 M&C Public Meeting had a surreal feel, both at the meeting and days afterwards.  First, the meeting was delayed by over 45 minutes.  Second, the mayor announced that major contamination that dated to the 1980's were apparently never remediated.  Comments followed from the borough administrator, borough attorney and council members. The usual committee reports were deferred; the borough administrator devoted all of his time to this issue.

I asked the mayor whether he could make any and all information related to this case available on the borough website without residents having to file OPRA requests. The council president could be seen nodding in seeming agreement to my request. The mayor responded that he would take it under advisement. There was silence from the council. I returned to my seat. Why would the mayor appear not to immediately honor my request for making information public?

An article appeared on the Record, but not until October 21, two days later.  The title took several turns, from "Dumont Tries to Address Its Past", to "Dumont Contamination Heats Up Race for Council", to the current "Dumont DPW Cited by State Over Contamination, But Paperwork is Missing".

As of October 25, there was no press release found on the borough website.  Why is news so important to health and property such as this being left exclusively to the newspaper for coverage?

A casual inquiry to the NJDEP revealed the following from their records search facility called "DEP Data Miner":

NJDEP "DEP Data Miner" Query for Dumont DPW Public Records

Take a look through the search results using "Data Miner" on the NJDEP home page.  The pages are specifically sequenced so that anyone having access to the internet can step through and duplicate the inquiry and results.  Perhaps the violations that were announced do not appear on the online database.  To the untrained eye, it appears that during both current and previous administrations:

• Various permits were applied and granted; 
• Periodic inspections were conducted; 
• Violations were found during some inspections.

Again, I do not claim expertise in this area, so I will leave further interpretation to the reader.

Dumont's Transparency - Lip Service?

Back in July, I emailed the Mayor and copied the full Council on a suggestion that, I thought, may benefit the mayor's self-proclaimed mission bringing transparency to borough hall.

This was not just a one-line suggestion that would have required much of the Ordinance and Resolution Committee's time or effort to complete.   With permission, a template crafted by the Open Government Task Force was used to minimize the effort and speed the adoption, rejection or the modification of the proposed resolution language:

Letter to Mayor and Council

Sample: Dumont Resolution To Enter Closed Session

I received no response from either mayor or any council member.

I then asked councilman Carrick at the August 17 Council meeting whether he received the e-mail.  He claimed he never received it and asked me to resend the message.  I did so and I have heard nothing since.

I am not sure why either the Mayor or any O&R committee member seems silent as to the suggestion's disposition.  Even if they were to respond "The Ordinance and Resolution Committee met and discussed your suggestion and has determined the Closed Meeting resolution will remain unchanged at this time" I would have respected the response even though it was not what I desired. Is the lack of response to a written inquiry considered professional?

Unfortunately this is one of many suggestions that remain unanswered, status unknown, perhaps pitched into the black hole of inconvenient questions and suggestions.

From a local blogger in Bergen County: "...it is perhaps time to start listening to constituents and begin to abandon the 'we know better than you mantra' before a desperate state treasury that begins to search for monies that have been misappropriated ,ill spent ,wasted ,ill advised and other wise foolishly squandered."