No state aid to offset budget increase in boro
Tinton Falls tax rate to rise by 16 cents to 75.5 cents
BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer

The Tinton Falls Borough Council is expected to adopt its 2006 municipal budget today at a special 7:30 p.m. meeting.

Unfortunately, there will be no state aid to offset the 16-cent-per-$100 increase in the tax rate this year.

The $19,485,753 spending plan was introduced in March and a public hearing was held in May, but council members did not want to adopt the budget until they heard from the state on the borough's application for state aid.

With $9,516,865 to be raised by taxes, if the budget is approved, the tax rate will be raised from 59 cents for every $100 of assessed valuation to 75.5 cents. The average residential property owner with a home assessed at $152,303 will see an increase of $242 on a tax bill of $1,150. A homeowner whose property is assessed at $200,000 will pay an additional $360.69 and the home assessed at $300,000 will pay $541.04 more.

Stephen Pfeffer, the borough's chief financial officer, said during his budget presentation that most borough departments kept their budgets in check but some money has to be put back into the surplus because it was taken down too low.

When the budget was introduced, Mayor Peter Maclearie blamed the prior administration's practice of "chasing new ratables, which, he said, led to increased costs that can no longer be offset against the ratables.

"Their decision to utilize over 94 percent of the existing surplus has left me no choice but to increase taxes to stabilize this and future budgets," he said earlier this year.

Council President Brendan Tobin, said on Monday in an e-mail to residents that everyone is working on ways to trim the nearly $3.9 million budget gap.

"State law requires each town to start their budget process each year with the surplus they had the year before. If surplus is used, it has to be made up or taxes have to be raised. Until our friends in Trenton fix this archaic law to make it more realistic, towns will be faced with having to maintain a surplus, but be penalized for using it," he said in the e-mail.

"This makes no sense, but we have to deal with it and since 94 percent of our nearly $4 million surplus was used in the last budget of the last administration, that means we have to find ways to fill that gap instead of passing it all along to the taxpayers."

Tobin explained that so far, boro officials have managed to save enough to trim roughly $1.8 million off that budget deficit, without cutting services.

"None of us like the fact that if the budget passes, we all face a 5 percent total property tax increase, but with sound fiscal management programs and money put into the right accounts instead of just dumped into surplus and spent later, we can avoid what's gone on in the borough for nearly 20 years," he said.

"The mayor and council and many borough employees live here and pay taxes, so we want to make sure we can keep services and our quality of life," Tobin said.