Brick Council Turns Down Mayor’s Salary Cut Ordinance

The Brick Township governing body defeats the Mayor's proposal to reduce his pay to a buck. Steve Acropolis says he's doing it with or without an ordinance.

At Tuesday night's council meeting in town hall, the all Republican council voted 4 - 3 against the plan. Mayor Acropolis, who's also a member of the same GOP group, is running for re-election in 2013. He says he never took the job of Mayor for the money. His goal is to bring down a 24 percent tax hike forced upon the residents this past year. Although he will cut his 52-thousand-dollar a year salary down to a dollar, he says there's a bigger issue at work here.

Acropolis says "the bottom line - if I take a dollar, that 51,000 is now put back into the general fund. It could end up going to pay for some other council member or elected official's salary or healthcare. That's not sitting well with me. An ordinance would have prevented that from happening. There's virtually no other way to separate the funds."

So just what was the reason for the nay on the plan? It seems like a totally viable option, right? According to Acropolis, two council members feel a possible lack of interest in serving the mayoralty for future candidates could be an issue if the salary was trimmed down. Acropolis calls that ridiculous and says "there was never a lack when the salary of that position paid $15,000 until they decided to balloon it to where it is now."

Two of the council members who were against the plan were actually voted out last month during the mid-term elections. They will be replaced in January by a team of Democrats. The mayor plans to discuss the issue with the new slate on the dais next month.