Increase will bring the tax rate to 40 cents per $100 of assessed property value
By John Tredrea
A 2007 Pennington Borough budget that will bring a municipal tax rate increase of 5 cents was adopted 5-0 by the Pennington Council on Monday night.
The increase will bring the tax rate to 40 cents per $100 of assessed property value.
The tax rate hike means the owner of a house assessed at $529,000, the borough average, will owe $2,116 in municipal taxes this year, up $265 from 2006.
Voting in favor of the $3,119,592 spending plan were David Garber, Diane Zompa, Weed Tucker, Joseph Di Falco and Joseph Lawver.
The budget adoption vote originally was slated for the May meeting, but council had to increase the bottom line of its original plan, and thus amended the proposal in May. The amendment made the postponement necessary.
In May, Councilman Lawver, who chairs council’s Finance Committee, said higher than anticipated costs in debt service were the main force behind the necessity to amend the budget. Council originally introduced the spending plan April 9.
Councilwoman Eileen Heinzel was not at the meeting. Instead, she attended a presentation by Capital Health System on a proposed new hospital in southeastern Hopewell Township, not far from Pennington. The meeting was held at Hopewell Valley Central High School.

