Council agrees: Red Bank budget needs work
BY LAYLI WHYTE
Staff Writer

RED BANK — The Borough introduced the 2005 municipal budget at a special meeting last week, with a call for a 6.8-percent increase on property taxes.

Councilman John P. Curley, who is the chairman of the finance committee, said that if this was the final reading of the budget, he would have voted to defeat it, but since there is still time to shave the increase down, he made the motion for the council to accept it at its introduction.

Councilwoman Jennifer Beck did vote to defeat the budget at its introduction, because, she said, she will never vote in favor of a tax increase.

The total preliminary budget is up this year to $15.7 million from $15.2 million, which is over a half of a million-dollar increase from the 2004 budget.

The borough is anticipating more than $7.8 million to be raised by taxes, which is less than a $1 million increase from last year. That will cover slightly more than half of what the borough is planning on spending this year.

The average home in the borough is assessed at $178,174, which is up from $177,704 from the previous year, according to borough Chief Financial Officer Terrance Whalen.

Last year’s increase was 1.5 cents on every dollar of assessed value of property.

If the budget was to stand as it is now, that could mean an average increase of about $121 in taxes for property owners in the borough.

This increase in the preliminary draft of the budget, according to Curley, is because the finance committee wanted to introduce the budget in time to apply for emergency state aid, which will help the borough to shave down the tax increase.

Although there are some large expenditures, such as the Capital Funds project of renovating and improving the Red Bank Public Library, which is expected to cost $1,775,000, the borough did carry over some funds from last year, to ease the tax burden on resident this year.

As a result of the borough selling off some land last year, over $700,000 was raised, and $250,000 was saved for this year’s budget to increase to revenue.

Another new revenue for the borough this year is the anticipated hotel/motel tax, which will be added to the price of rooms in the hotels in the borough.

“A conservative estimate of what that will bring in is $150,000,” said Curley.

Despite the new revenue, members of the Finance Committee agreed that their work is not finished.

“We will collectively have to make some recommendations that may be unpalatable to some members of council,” said Councilman Pasquale Menna, a member of the Finance Committee.

He said that the committee will probably have to make some cuts concerning discretionary costs.

“We all have the same philosophy,” said Mayor Edward J. McKenna Jr., “and that is to pull our belt in as tightly as possible.”

“Let’s keep working and let’s work together,” he said.

The final budget is due to be voted on at the April 11 council meeting at 5:30 p.m. at borough hall.