BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer
OCEAN TOWNSHIP — After a presentation and questions from the public, the Township Council adopted the 2005 municipal budget of $25,798,481. The spending plan includes a tax levy of $12,835,061.
This year ends 12 years without an increase in the municipal portion of the tax bill. For the average residential property assessed at $445,347, the municipal portion of the tax levy will be $1,267 or $216 more than 2004, which amounts to an increase of roughly $18 per month.
The revaluation conducted over the past several years becomes effective in 2005. Township Administrator David Kochel said it is difficult to compare tax rates in a revaluation year since the impact will be different for each property dependent upon the difference between the 1993 and 2005 assessment.
Also, since the municipal portion of the overall tax rate is relatively small, the bottom line impact will not be known until the school, county and fire district tax rates are struck, Kochel said.
It is anticipated that the municipal portion of the total tax rate will be in the 16 percent range, Kochel said. School taxes will contribute to 66 percent of the budget, and county taxes account for 18 percent.
According to the township’s Chief Financial Officer Stephen O. Gallagher, after the property revaluation last year, the average home assessment increased from $188,000 to $445,347, but the municipal tax rate based on $100 of assessed value went down from 59.4 cents to a little less than half that amount, 28.4 cents.
Kochel said that just under half of the revenues required to support the 2005 municipal budget will be raised through real estate taxes. The rest will come from various sources: $6,213,024 from surplus, $2,572,000 from municipal revenues, $3,484,208 in state aid and $694,188 in various grants.
As for the surplus, Kochel said, “In the past, we used the surplus to keep the tax rate down, but we can’t do that any longer. We do not anticipate any kind of tax shock in next year’s budget.”
Kochel said during the presentation, that the level of state aid has remained flat and other costs are going up. Among those costs are general and health insurance costs that will increase by 9.8 percent; solid waste disposal cost increases of 10.4 percent.
In addition, state reinstitution of municipal contributions to fund public pensions will increase by 300 percent, or $180,000 and the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel will increase by $40,000 or 20 percent. Debt service will increase 8.5 percent or $149,800 and the reserve for uncollected taxes will increase $228,000.
The fourth of five payments of $106,000 per year for the county mandated revaluation is also included in the budget.
Besides these significant areas of increase, there are normal inflationary pressures experienced in most line items, Kochel said after the introduction of the budget last month, explaining that salary increases add to the bottom line, but every effort was made to provide the greatest level of service in the most cost effective and efficient manner.