Rising debt service big part of tax increase

SHREWSBURY — A 2002 budget of $6,178,470.53 was introduced by the Borough Council which will require an increase of 4.5 cents in the tax rate for municipal purposes, raising it to 93.5 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

The proposed budget is up $308,532.32 over the budget of $5,869,938.21 for 2001.

A public hearing on the budget is scheduled for 8 p.m. April 15.

Borough Business Administrator Constance Lauffer said the most significant increase in the budget was in debt service which rose $269,900 from $613,200 last year to $889,300 in 2002.

The increase is associated with the construction of the new Borough Hall.

The rest of the budget was described by Lauffer as a "maintenance" budget.

Councilman William Moss said at the council meeting Feb. 21, when the budget was introduced, that the council was cognizant of other activities going on in the borough, such as the planned expansion and renovations at the Shrewsbury school, and tried to minimize the effect of the municipal budget.

Voters last November approved the $5.4 million project for the school. The school district will receive $1.8 million from the state toward the cost.

For the municipal budget in 2002, the council plans to use $747,500 in surplus funds. It applied $635,000 from surplus to the budget last year, when the tax rate was 89 cents.

The amount to be raised by taxes for the municipal budget is $4,225,569.44.

Salary increases for the various departments were minimal for the most part; some remained the same and a few even went down.

Salary increases of note are in code enforcement and administration, which will go up $13,565 from $25,100 last year to $38,665, an increase of 54 percent; in the office of zoning officer, which will go up $10,750, from $24,200 last year to $34,950 this year, an increase of 44.4 percent; for streets and road maintenance in the Public Works Department, which went up $21,170 from $483,975 last year to 505,145, an increase of 4.37 percent, and for the police department, which went up $41,725 from $1,230,900 last year to $1,272,625, an increase of 3.4 percent.

The declining salary lines were for the Planning Board, which will decrease $1,105, from $23,900 last year to $22,795, a drop of 4.6 percent, and for general administration, which went down $2,750 from $109,000 last year to $106,250, a drop of 2.5 percent.

Last year, the total tax rate for the borough, with county and school taxes included, was $2.985 per $100 assessed valuation.