BY JOYCE BLAY
Staff Writer
LAKEWOOD — For the second consecutive year, the Township Committee has introduced a municipal budget that will increase the municipal tax rate.
Committee members voted 3-1 on April 21 to introduce a $50.8 million municipal budget for 2005. A public hearing is scheduled for May 19. The budget increases last year’s total appropriation of $50.1 million by $732,580, raising the current municipal tax rate 1.9 cents from 79.8 cents to 81.7 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
That means the owner of a home assessed at $100,000 will pay $817 in municipal taxes in 2005, up from $798 in 2004. The owner of a home assessed at $200,000 will pay $1,634 in municipal taxes in 2005, up from $1,596 in 2004. The owner of a home assessed at $300,000 will pay $2,451 in municipal taxes in 2005, up from $2,394 in 2004.
Total nontax revenues including surplus will shrink from last year’s figure of $28 million by $584,937, falling to $27.4 million. In contrast, the amount to be raised by taxation will rise from $22 million to $23.5 million, increasing taxes by $1,457,518.
Mayor Charles Cunliffe voted with committeemen Raymond Coles and Menashe Miller to approve the introduction of the budget.
Committeeman Robert Singer voted not to introduce the budget.
“We’re using too much surplus,” Singer said after the meeting. “The day of reckoning is ahead.”
Deputy Mayor Meir Lichtenstein was not present.
Township Manager Frank Edwards said the following day that the budget was still lower than it had been under previous administrations.
“Even though the municipal tax rate is going up, it’s still considerably less than what it was in 1996,” he said on April 22. “The [state is] shifting some of its responsibilities back to municipalities.”
Edwards provided a handout that indicated areas of increased expenditures, including insurance, utilities, municipal and police pension contributions, salaries, apartment trash reimbursement and trash disposal costs.
“Trash disposal costs have gone up as the town has grown,” he said. “The [court mandated] apartment trash reimbursement has gone up [another] 20 percent, from 60 percent to 80 percent.”
Edwards said the township was also having to assume a portion of the pension payments for municipal employees in addition to already having assumed a portion of the payments for police and fire pensions for the second year. The five-year phase-in will eventually shift the bulk of pension payments to local government.
The township has yet to negotiate new union contracts with PBA Local 71, which is now in arbitration, as well as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 97, which represents public works department employees. The teamsters union has not requested arbitration at this time, according to Edwards.
Insurance also played a major role in contributing to the township’s escalating costs, he said.
“It’s not unique to Lakewood,” said Edwards. “Liability, health insurance and health comp insurance have gone up. New Jersey has moved the cost of insurance outside of caps because they recognize that it’s growing way in excess of what inflation has been. There’s no way to protect the rates in a given year.”
Despite increasing expenses, Edwards said that tax collection in 2004 was even more successful than in 2003.
That was not reassuring to resident William Doherty, a licensed pilot. Doherty said during the meeting’s public forum that he had read in the media that the committee was considering closing Lakewood Airport and replacing it with residential housing.
“Challenges by other towns were defeated at substantial cost,” said Doherty. “I would hope the township is not about to make this colossal mistake. It’s just going to cost us a lot of money and get us nothing in return.”
At the April 7 committee meeting, Lichtenstein questioned whether Lakewood needs an airport. He did not indicate that he favored closing the 170-acre airport in order to sell it for residential development.
“My concern is that the airport is quite a chunk of land and I want to make sure the township is making good use of it,” Lichtenstein said later that week. “If it’s not going to be a thriving airport, then that lends to a different type of decision.”
Coles said that even unpopular ideas need to be discussed.
“While the airport has a potential for bringing in high-end clients, I think we owe it to the residents in town to see what other uses we have for it,” he said. “It could be a very good way of reinvigorating the industrial park, which is out of land. To do anything less would be to shirk the responsibility of the township.”
Township Attorney Steven Secare, who spoke to the Tri-Town News on April 10, viewed the matter in more practical terms.
“Who cares if the FAA [sues us]?” he said of the possibility that the federal government might seek to force the town to keep the airport open. “Land in Lakewood is at a premium.”