Spring 2000- The Mayor facing a $27.5 million budget hole,  got $16 million of additional "Distressed Cities" monies. To cover the remaining $11.5 million shortfall, he raised taxes again, laid off 58 employees after 32 took lucrative severance packages which included 6 months of salary and 3 months of medical coverage to employees with as little as one year of service!   Joan Earls, Director of Recreation, had announced her retirement prior to the buyouts, but Schundler gave her a package anyway worth over $50,000.    Nick Fargo, the Finance Director/CFO, accepted the buyout which cost the city approx. $65,000 total. He had a new job lined up thanks to Councilman Bill Gaughan. Unfortunately it was with in Union City for Mayor Rudy Garcia. Fargo was out within 6 months. Schundler attempted to bring him back, and let him keep his package, but State of NJ Local Finance Director Ulrich Steinberg said no. He commented that JC didn't need any more patronage.

Many of the layoffs made no economic sense such as the layoff of Bernandette Debbs, coordinator of the Jersey City Alliance to Combat Drugs and Alcohol Abuse. She was paid from state grant money channeled through the County as reported by Sister Eileen Chamberlain in her Feb 11, 200 JJ Letter to the Editor. Sister Eileen Chamberlain is vice president of St. Aloysius High School in Jersey City.

In the fall of 1999, the City laid off at least 20 school crossing guards, whose part-time salaries are $8,800 plus benefits. Now the City utilizes Police Officers, average $50,000 plus benefits, to direct and control traffic at the schools. In 1996, Hudson County disbanded its school traffic guards unit and JC inherited most of the 27 open slots. Charter Schools, the Mayor's pet project, have been established throughout the city thereby increasing the need for more traffic crossing guards but Schundler laid them off. In a JJ 4/14/00 column "Cops spread thin helping kids cross" residents of Washburn, Oakland and Baldwin Avenues (North District-Journal Square area) "incensed over growing night-time crime in their area".. "asked the police to add more officers to the evening shift as a way to combat it." "But the police district commander told the residents he couldn't assign more officers to the night tour because he needed all the day shift cops he had to cover crossing guard duty. All over the city, he said, police are filling in for crossing guards…"

But in the Mayor's office, "New staffer hired amid layoff threat", headlines Jim Kennelly's 8/25/99 article referred to the additional PR person hired. "When questioned by state officials about the size of the mayor's communications staff and recent hirings made despite the city's tight fiscal straits, Schundler responded with a strained and unpersuasive analogy about soldiers still brushing their teeth even when they're about to go into battle" (JJ Editorial 9/3/99).   hello???     

Steve Close "Close Encounters',  9/3/1999

As a result of the July 1994 downsizing, through rich buyouts primarily to the police & fire, the City in 1997 was billed $28.1 million for additional fire & police pension costs which Schundler then bonded for 36 years at 5.9% annually!   The payments come to about $138,000 per retiree plus the annual 5.9% bond interest costs which exceed the cost of their annual raises.   What a total waste!  The firefighters and police officers age 47 and older with 20 years of service got to retire five years earlier with full pension benefits. The following year there was a shortage of firemen resulting in the random closing of firehouses during the day and the calling in of personnel from other towns for JC fires.   Also, the fire department does not have the equipment to fight high rise fires and every building on the waterfront would be impacted if there's a fire!  The salary budgets were then filled with patronage jobs like the NIDs, fromer Heritage Foundation staffers, charter school staffers etc.

July 1994 Schundler gave rich buyouts to about 109 employees and laid off 38 others including 7 of the 9 inspectors who monitor restaurants & food stores. At the same time, Schundler hired Stuart Koperweiss, a former Coleman salesman, campaign worker and neighbor, to head the JC Redevelopment Agency as the President while maintaining it's other Executive Director Thomas Ahern. He also hired Neil Sheridan, a salaried Schundler campaign worker, as a project manager. Most of those laid off were civil service employees.

Steve Close "Close Encounters",  10/21/1994

June 2001, "Built 150 years ago by Jersey City's first mayor and thought to be protected as part of the Harsimus Cove Historic District, a row house on Erie Street is now nothing but a battered shell.

On Saturday, usually a quiet day for Downtown residents because special permits are required for any construction, laborers began knocking down the house's brick facade, which was supposed to be protected by the home's historic designation.

"I asked for permits, and they didn't have the right ones. I told them they had to stop," said Charles Kessler, a member of the Jersey City Landmark Conservancy. "The fact that they did this on a Saturday is an indication that he knew he was trying to pull a fast one."

Police and fire officials responded to the Erie Street scene near First Street and cordoned off the area directly in front of the property, fearing that electrical wires connected along the facade would come loose and cause a safety hazard.

By yesterday afternoon, the barricades were still there but the sidewalk was accessible again, and there were no workers in the house. The beams that form the roof could be seen by passersby, who had a good view through to the rear of the home. With the exception of a small piece of wall and a short stack of bricks, the three-story building has no front, leaving it vulnerable to the elements and neighbors' criticism.

"Forget that they didn't have the right to do this to a historic site. What happens if they (construction officials) say it's beyond repair now and they say it has to come down? How will that affect me?" said Robert Perrault, who lives with his wife, Claire, in a row house once occupied by Dudley Gregory, the first mayor of Jersey City, who also built the house that's been gutted.

Guy Catrillo, chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission, called the work at 27 Erie St. "a slap in the face" that took place only because the city's Building Department has shrunk due to "buyouts, retirements and layoffs."

While the administration is laying people off, (JJ dated 7/1/94) "City managers find jobs a bonus… Administration defends pay raises as it contemplates possibility of 300 layoffs"; the Mayor doled out $500,000 in raises most to those working in the Mayor's office. "Gallagher (Schundler's spokesman) called the $500,000 the administration handed out in raises to management only two tenths of 1 per cent of the budget. It's a small price to pay to get and keep good employees in the mayor's office, Gallagher said."

"In a related incident, it was also learned that another deputy mayor, Fred Ayad, who is on the city payroll, was supposed to be in housing court yesterday to answer a complaint filed by the city Code Enforcement Office. Ayad is charged with failing to provide heat to tenants in a 12-unit apartment building on the 200 block of Jewett Avenue."