By Brent Johnson
The Star-Ledger
EDISON, N.J. — Edison officials have voted to rehire six firefighters, two months after laying them off as the town struggled financially.
But the Edison fire union vows to continue fighting the town in court, claiming that the layoffs were the result of political retribution.
Edison Mayor Jun Choi laid off the men in July after announcing the state’s fifth-largest town faced an $8.4 million budget gap. He said he imposed the layoffs after the fire union refused to negotiate with town officials on ways to slash spending.
But Edison officials are in the middle of switching the town’s budget from a fiscal to a calendar year — a move some say will buy time to fix municipal finances.
“This puts the town in a much better position,” said Anthony Cancro, Edison’s business administrator.
The state local finance board approved the switch Wednesday. Edison officials then reinstated the firefighters at Thursday night’s council meeting, as part of a transitional $62.5 million budget that will carry the town through the end of the year, when the switch takes affect.
The men could return to work as early as next week, and will receive retroactive pay, minus any unemployment they received from the state, Cancro said.
“Nobody wants to see anybody laid off, especially in hard times,” council vice president Wayne Mascola said. “Changing to the calendar year helped facilitate this quicker.”
Both fire union and township officials are scheduled to be in Superior Court in New Brunswick on Sept. 30 for a hearing on whether Edison imposed the layoffs in good faith.
Reinstating the men, fire union president Robert Yackel said, won’t cause him to drop the case.
“This is exactly what we said it was: political retribution, plain and simple,” Yackel said yesterday. “They used this as a ploy to get the council to support the calendar-year budget.”
Union officials charge that Choi ordered the layoffs because the union backed his opponent, Councilwoman Antonia Ricigliano, in June’s Democratic primary.
The six firefighters were the only employees laid off after Choi warned that as many as 75 workers could lose their jobs if the town’s 11 unions didn’t agree to wage freezes, furloughs or other concessions.
The Edison council still has to adopt the transitional budget. A public hearing is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 8.
Officials then have until Feb. 10 to introduce a 2010 budget, which is projected to be about $130 million, said Mark Acker, Edison’s chief financial officer.
Municipal taxes will rise slightly under the transitional budget.
The average homeowner will pay $25 more in the third quarter, Acker said.
But the fourth quarter will see no increase, he said.
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