Bayonne says 'there are no layoffs' behind $3M for retiree payouts; new administration moves to drop three outside law firms

BAYONNE — A Bayonne administration official told the City Council on Wednesday evening that a $3 million special emergency appropriation for “severance liabilities” is meant to pay what the city owes recently retired workers, not to fund job cuts. “There is no layoff plan. There are no layoffs,” the official said.

The remarks came at the council’s caucus, a work session where members review the agenda for the regular meeting. Nothing was adopted Wednesday. The ordinance, along with the other items below, is up for a vote at the council’s regular meeting next week, Wednesday, Oct. 14, at 6 p.m. in the Dorothy E. Harrington Council Chambers at City Hall, 630 Avenue C, the date the council set when the ordinance was introduced on Sept. 16.

1. The $3 million: “no layoffs”

The ordinance’s title, which comes from the state law that allows this kind of appropriation (N.J.S.A. 40A:4-53(h)), describes “contractually required severance liabilities resulting from the layoff or retirement of employees.” The council passed it on first reading, 5-0, on Sept. 16.

When a council member asked whether the city would have a process going forward to cover retirements in advance, the official answered by first addressing the layoff question. “There was an erroneous article circulated that this has to do with funding a layoff plan,” the official said. “There is no layoff plan. There are no layoffs.”

“This is to fund the obligation of time due for retirees. There was a large wave of public safety retirees over the last two or three years,” the official said, adding that the money helps cover those obligations going into next year. “There’s also some civilian retirement that are time due in this number.”

The ordinance itself uses the state law’s standard wording, covering severance liabilities “resulting from the layoff or retirement of employees,” and does not name departments or employees; the explanation that no layoffs are planned comes from the administration.

On whether the city can get ahead of such costs, the official said the goal is to fund the city’s accumulated absence liability “to the greatest extent possible,” but added: “I can’t say that there’s a really effective plan to do that. The goal is to fund that trust fund that would fund those liabilities going forward. But this doesn’t do that. This addresses what our current obligation is.”

The official did not say which article they meant, and Hudson TV could not identify it. Hudson TV’s Oct. 6 preview quoted the ordinance’s title and noted that the text does not say how many employees or which departments are affected.

A companion resolution on next week’s agenda would finance the appropriation with special emergency notes. Under the ordinance, at least one-fifth of the amount must be included in each of the city’s following annual budgets.

This is the third year in a row Bayonne has used this tool. The council adopted a $4 million version in 2024, when then-Law Director Jay Coffey told NJ.com it was needed for a wave of police and fire retirements, and a $3 million version in 2025.

2. A shake-up of the city’s lawyers and consultants

Mayor Sharon Ashe-Nadrowski’s administration, which took office this summer, is reshuffling the city’s outside professionals. Up for a vote next week:

• Three law firms dropped from the city’s legal panel: Apruzzese, McDermott, Mastro & Murphy; McManimon, Scotland & Baumann; and Chasan, Lamparello, Mallon & Cappuzzo. A separate item ends Apruzzese’s agreement as special labor counsel.
• Two existing legal contracts cut by $25,000 each: Inglesino, Wyciskala & Taylor, to a $50,000 cap, and McManimon, Scotland & Baumann, to a $125,000 cap.
• Eight new professional-services contracts running Oct. 15 through Dec. 31, worth up to $157,000 combined: Florio, Kenny & Raval as labor attorney ($50,000); DeCotis, FitzPatrick & Cole as general counsel ($40,000); Surenian, Edwards, Buzak & Nolan as affordable housing attorney ($20,000); Boswell, Inc. as consulting engineer ($20,000); Jardim, Meisner, Salmon, Sprague & Susser as Planning and Zoning Board attorney ($12,000); The Aubrey Group as grant writer ($5,000); and Adams, Rehmann & Heggan Associates and Neglia Group as planning consultants ($5,000 each). The board attorney and planner contracts are charged to developer escrow accounts.

3. Affordable housing consultant contract grows to $125,000

A separate resolution would raise the city’s contract with the planning firm Clarke Caton Hintz for affordable housing matters from $75,000 to $125,000, paid from the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

4. Everything else on next week’s agenda

• Road bonds: two bond ordinances up for final votes. One appropriates $1.6 million for various roads, with $867,633 in bonds and the rest from an expected state Department of Transportation grant. The other appropriates $2 million, with about $571,000 in bonds and the rest from expected state grants. Its posted text names 2nd Street, 4th Street and West 9th Street among the roads.
• Salary ranges: an ordinance setting pay ranges of $85,000 to $225,000 for department directors and $75,000 to $185,000 for statutory posts such as the clerk, CFO, tax collector and tax assessor. The mayor also submitted executive orders setting ranges for a secretarial assistant ($48,500–$60,000), a confidential aide to the mayor ($48,500–$58,000) and a deputy municipal department head ($82,000–$92,000).
• Oak Street pump station: two applications for New Jersey Infrastructure Bank loans, one for bar screens and HVAC and one for grit removal and odor control.
• Withdrawn: a $2,590,538 sewer and paving construction award and a $70,641.30 deal with CivicPlus for a new city website were pulled from the agenda.
• Smaller items: $36,966.70 for fire department bunker gear; an $18,000 increase for Mobile Payment Processing Systems, to $51,000; a tax appeal settlement for 174-180 Broadway; $26,660 to clean City Hall’s garage drainage; $24,533.40 for payloader parts; a modification for the Avenue F sewer replacement engineering; four notices of claim against the city; and two new parking ordinances, with hearings set for Tuesday, Nov. 10.

Public comment

Two residents spoke. One asked whether the council is reviewing the development projects the previous administration pushed through. A city official said staff have been working late nights to make sense of what the prior administration did in its last six to eight months.

Another resident said a police dispatch (CAD) record they obtained did not match what they reported about a vehicle on a sidewalk near the Bayonne Housing Authority, and asked who would review the issue and follow up. The resident also repeated a question first raised at the September meeting: whom Business Administrator Andrew Casais communicated with about the state-appointed oversight seat at the Bayonne Housing Authority, and when and how. No answer was given on the video before the meeting adjourned.

Sources: City of Bayonne livestream of the Oct. 7 caucus; Oct. 7 caucus agenda; ordinance texts posted on bayonnenj.org. Featured image: City of Bayonne livestream.

Hudson TV asks: Is the city’s “no layoffs” explanation enough for you, or should Bayonne publish how many retirees and how much each department is owed before next week’s vote?
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