It looks like Newark, New Jersey is in a shitty situation (no pun intended). The mayor is ordering the Newark government to not buy toilet paper in order to save money. So if you work in a city office, you will now need to bring your own.

In addition to not buying toilet paper, work weeks for non-emergency city workers will be cut to four days, gas will not be purchased for “unimportant” municipal vehicles, city pools will be shut down, and the city won’t have any Christmas decorations this year. This will all be effective in the beginning of August.

Here’s an even sadder part; he’s also proposing a $600 million dollar budget that may include laying off 350 police and firefighters.

MYFOXNY.COM – Things are getting so bad in Newark that the mayor has ordered the government to stop buying toilet paper.

It’s part of Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s belt-tightening plans that include reducing most city workers to a 4-day work week and shuttering city pools. Booker estimates that the pool closures alone would save $250,000. He also says that no gas will be purchased for municipal vehicles that are not deemed critically important.

Police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers would not be affected by the furlough plan. City workers were already bracing for furloughs starting in August. The number of unpaid days would increase from 11 to 19 with Booker’s plan.

The city budget shortfall is $70 million and Booker plans to meet the revenue shortfall with budget cuts instead of property tax increases.

“Taxes can not be the answer,” Booker said.

Booker says property taxes in Newark have gone up 76 percent in last decade and 19 percent in the past five years.

At the news conference Booker was also quoted as saying, “Call me Mr. Scrooge, if you want, but they’ll be no Christmas decorations around the city.”

Booker has proposed a $600 million budget which includes the possibility of laying off as many as 350 police and firefighters.

The moves come after the City Council deferred action on the creation of a municipal utilities authority, which is a key part of Booker’s budget.

Here’s the source.

The debate in Ann Arbor, where firefighters are being laid off due to a multimillion dollar budget deficit, is over an $850,000 piece of art.

That’s how much the city has agreed to pay German artist Herbert Dreiseitl for a three-piece water sculpture that would go in front of the new police and courts building right by the City Hall.

The city has the money to do it because in 2007, it agreed to set aside for public art 1 percent of money that went into capital improvement projects that were $100,000 or larger. Most capital projects involve streets, sewers and water.

Ann Arbor City Council member Stephen Kunselman, a Democrat, opposed the art deal.

“I think it is incredibly insensitive,” Kunselman said. “It is insensitive to the staff and their morale. It is insensitive to the community. There are people out there struggling financially, and here we are spending a large amount of money on a piece of art.”

Kunselman said the city is also eliminating the solid waste coordinator from the budget, which oversees trash pickup, and hiring an art coordinator.

City Administrator Roger Fraser wrote in an e-mail that the solid waste coordinator position was eliminated as a cost-cutting measure because the solid waste millage had decreased. Fraser wrote that the art coordinator position would be paid for by the public art fund.

Apparently, a sculpture that shoots out water is far more important than a person having a job that supports them and their families.

Why the heck are you spending $850,000 dollars on sculptures when your city is in debt? [SOURCE]