(Wait! Come back and pick up that newspaper, you cowards!)

I have to admit that - of all the things that filled me with dread nine months ago - the city budget filled me with the most dread when I joined the council in July.

As you may remember, weeks before we even took office, the state summoned us to Trenton and threatened to place Asbury Park under state financial and management oversight, due to a projected $5.3 million budget deficit.

The 10-year Carabetta stalemate on beachfront redevelopment had cost the city $10 million in back taxes, and our deteriorating oceanfront was operating at a $400,000 annual deficit, due to factors like sky-rocketing liability insurance and annual utility bills of $160,000 for Convention Hall.

To add to our headaches, labor contracts for the police and fire departments had not been settled since 1997 (causing $1.1 million of last year's debt), and the city had to pay over $900,000 to settle a long-standing bankruptcy suit on the Albion Hotel. Federal COPS grants were coming to an end, which meant we had to assume an extra $359,000 a year in police costs in 2001, and municipal taxes had not been raised since 1997.

There was no capital expense fund to cover long-overdue repairs on everything from the fire house to city hall to our pot-holed streets; there was no money for desperately needed resources like police, police cars, and code enforcement personnel; and a 2001 budget had not even been introduced.

Our options? The state immediately demanded a five-year financial plan, and insisted that we lay off 10% of our city hall staff - about 29 people - in our first two months in office.

(Uhm, pardon me while I put down the newspaper and run...)

Where are we now? As you hopefully know, by late August, we had negotiated a $6.5 million tax lien sale on the Carabetta properties, a $950,000 sale of the Albion Hotel, and we laid off only half the number of employees demanded by the state. We also re-privatized the city's trash pick-up, for an estimated savings of over $286,000 a year.

The long-overdue police and fire department contracts were finally settled (and will be for the next two years), and municipal taxes rose by a relatively modest (given our circumstances) 8 cents in 2001.

Although the state decided to forego financial supervision, the next few years will require an on-going balancing act to cover the gap before beachfront redevelopment revenues kick in.

Our 2002 budget, which was introduced last week, is now available at city hall, and a public hearing will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1 in the city council chambers.

What can you expect? The total 2002 budget is $27.5 million, down from over $32 million in 2001.

On the negative side, the city must assume an additional $956,849 in expired COPS grants for the police officers we already have, and our state aid (which typically increased by about $500,000 a year) will remain frozen at last year's total.

Liability insurance costs have sky-rocketed by 30%, largely due to our deteriorating, city-owned beach properties, and employee medical insurance is up 10%. Further, our debt service costs have risen to $1 million from approximately $860,000 in 2001, due to repairs on Convention Hall.

On the positive side, Oceanfront Acquisitions is now paying taxes on the former Carabetta beach properties, and this will hopefully raise our tax collection rate of 82.2% (probably the lowest in Monmouth County) by several percentage points.

In turn, this means that our state-mandated reserve fund for uncollected taxes (now a crushing $2.7 million) will shrink in 2003.

In addition, we are including a modest number of improvements, such as a yet-to-be-determined capital expense fund and a provision to hire four new police officers. (The department requested eleven.)

Our anticipated 2002 tax increase of 3.9 cents will cost the owner of a $150,000 home approximately $14 in additional taxes each quarter, but even that number comes with a hard dose of reality.

The 2002 budget assumes that the city will conclude its negotiations with Oceanfront Acquisitions and collect at least $3.35 million for the beachfront pavilions this year - the equivalent of an additional 78 cent tax hike that must be offset in other ways if a contract isn't signed.

The bottom line, with state and federal aid drastically shrinking, is that the numbers aren't pretty and may not be for several years. Please be assured, however, that we will continue to look for additional funding sources, and we will try to leverage city resources in creative ways until redevelopment pays off.

For example, we successfully petitioned Bruce Springsteen for two new police cars, code enforcement hardware and software, and a $50,0000 recreation grant in December, and we'll work with our new Economic Development Director to entice more job- and tax-generating businesses into the city in 2002.

We'll also look to city volunteers to help us creatively provide some of the amenities that other towns take for granted.

What we won't try to do (however much you beg) is to hide the hard truths from you.

I hope you'll thank the Finance Department, the city's department heads, and (particularly) new City Manager Terry Weldon for the work they put into our 2001 and 2002 city budgets.

This is the first time in several years that the budget has been introduced before July, and - at the council's request - Terry introduced a new budget process that included public departmental hearings and a council work session. He was also the driving force behind many of the innovations that allowed us to keep our heads above water this year.

In a town with a bigger budget, that would be cause for a raise. (Say, Terry, what if we chip in and buy you lunch at the Kingsley Deli?)