Reductions totaling $1 million found,
but committee says another $700,000 needed
By:Roger Alvarado
The Township Committee held off on introducing a tentative budget that would have called for a $67 tax hike for the owner of a property assessed at the township average of $350,000 in favor of finding further savings for taxpayers, Tuesday.
A total amount of township spending planned for 2004 has not been presented, as committee members continue to trim the budget. But the $693,000 tax levy increase discussed at the meeting would add about 1.94 cents to the current 36-cent municipal tax rate, a 5.3 percent increase.
During its Feb. 17 budget work session, committee members instructed Township Administrator Kevin P. Davis and Finance Director Ronald Zilinski to find at least $1 million in savings in the municipal budget.
The latest budget proposal drops the initial proposed tax increase from over $1.7 million to $693,000, however, committee members say they want to go further.
"That’s still too much," said Committeeman Carl Suraci, who now chairs the Finance Committee in light of the departure of ex-Committeeman John Souren. "We need to find a way to save more money for the taxpayers and bring that number down. The administrator and CFO did what we asked them to do, but I think we can dig a little deeper, so tabling it right now is the thing to do."
"We need to really fine-tune it," added Committeeman Tony Gwiazdowski. "We need to carefully take a look at the 27,000 line items and go back department by department and see where we can save people money."
Committeeman Gwiazdowski called on the Finance Committee, the administrator and CFO to "take off their jackets and roll up their sleeves" in an effort to find greater cost savings. Deputy Mayor Bob Wagner concurred.
"This is a step in the right direction, but what we need to do now is fine-tune it down as much as possible and do some additional scrubbing," he said.
During his presentation Committeeman Suraci noted that homeowners in Hillsborough carry a bigger tax burden than residents in neighboring Franklin and Bridgewater townships and therefore he says the committee has a "larger burden to hold down taxes."
Mr. Suraci also pointed out that despite the fact that school taxes make up 66 percent of the tax bill and that the county takes 18 percent, the committee will do its best to "hold down taxes."
After the meeting, Mayor Steven Sireci who arrived at the meeting late and missed the presentation because of a prior commitment, concurred with his colleagues.
"We made such good progress between the work session we held three weeks ago and now that I don’t see why we would introduce it tonight if we can still find savings," Mayor Sireci said. "There’s no reason introduce it if we’re going to change it."
Mayor Sireci says that the committee will aim to introduce the budget during its March 23 meeting.
Committeeman Suraci added that the committee’s goal is to have the entire budget finished by April 27.