Resident wins second term as freeholder

County Freeholder and Merchantville resident, Carmen Rodriguez, and Ed McDonnell easily won a second term on Tuesday. An advocate of fiscal discipline and social responsibility in her current term, she has supported the county's effort to control property taxes by cutting 517 employees

County Freeholder and Merchantville resident, Carmen Rodriguez, easily won a second term on Tuesday. An advocate of fiscal discipline and social responsibility in her current term, she has supported the county's effort to control property taxes by cutting 517 employees from its work force and reducing its payroll by $18 million. She's forged a partnership with county employees to maintain and improve services and accomplished this by redistributing work and allowing employees access to better technology and training.

Rodriguez wants the chance to continue projects she's helped further as freeholder liaison to the Board of Social Services and the county's health and human services department. An important area of concern to her is maintaining necessary public services and investing resources into programs for vulnerable groups such as children, seniors, the mentally ill and homeless. Additionally, she and the other freeholders plan to continue their cost-control efforts in the next term by requiring workers to pay for more of their health insurance expenses and eliminating sick-time sell-back, a perk that lets employees trade unused sick time for cash.

< Prev		Next >