By: Dick Brinster
HIGHTSTOWN The Borough Council has set a public hearing for May 7 on a municipal budget that would hike the tax rate by 19 cents, with Administrator Candace Gallagher hoping the increase can be lowered to 2 cents through an infusion of extraordinary state aid.
"We will be applying for $380,000 in extraordinary aid," she told the Borough Council at Monday night’s meeting. "The budget has to be introduced before they will consider our application for extraordinary aid."
That application had to be submitted by Thursday.
The council approved the $5.7 million spending measure on a 5-1 vote, with Patrick Thompson casting the dissenting vote. He said he wants to look back at what needs to be spent "from the ground up."
"It’s not due to a lack of efficiency by our borough officials or our employees," he said. "It’s a matter of the structure."
Councilman Larry Quattrone also hoped more might be done before the budget is adopted.
"I moved to introduce, but that doesn’t mean we’re done working on it?" he asked Ms. Gallagher, who assured him that was the case.
The rate increase, necessitated by a $424,000 increase in spending, would raise the local purpose tax to $1.505 per $100 of assessed property value. That would equate to a $228 tax increase for the owner of a home assessed at the borough average of $120,000.
The 2-cent hike if the borough gets all it requests from the state would equate to a $24 hike for the average homeowner.
Of the total pending budget, about $2.7 million comprises salaries and wages, an increase of $92,860. About $1.14 million is earmarked for operating expenses, an increase of $60,016. Police-related expenditures are about $1.6 million.
Final approval of the budget is not expected until July, after the state releases its all-important extraordinary aid figures. In 2006, when the borough received $200,000 in extraordinary state aid, the tax rate rose by 18 cents.
In other business, the council decided after an executive session to file a tax appeal against the Hightstown Development Association, seeking to assess the company’s 199-unit garden apartment complex on Westerlea Avenue at $12.2 million.
The HDA has filed an appeal for the 2005 and 2006 tax years.
The borough contends two buildings comprising the complex had a combined assessment of $5.4 million, which implies a true market value of more than $12 million as of Oct. 1, 2006.
The council also agreed to accept a contribution of $31,573 from CCL Label in lieu of construction of curbs and sidewalks adjacent to the property. The company plans to build an addition to its warehouse where Railroad Avenue was recently vacated near Stockton Street.
The money should be enough to fund improvements at that site, which lies in the Stockton Street Historic District, Borough Engineer Carmela Roberts said. And those borough upgrades, she said, should make the project as "bigger than just curbs and sidewalks."
"If they now move ahead and replace what’s there with concrete curbs and sidewalks, we may come right behind them and tear it up and replace them," Ms. Roberts said.
The council also voted to petition the state Department of Community Affairs for a one-year extension to May 31, 2008 for use of a $350,000 grant for improvements to Bank Street. The resolution cited delays related to redevelopment of the former rug mill property there.

