By: Bill Greenwood
JAMESBURG The borough’s proposed 2007 municipal budget will include a 10.79 percent tax-rate hike now that the state Department of Community Affairs has released special aid figures.
The DCA announced Tuesday that Jamesburg would receive $100,000 in extraordinary aid a special aid category distributed to towns with limited tax bases whose property tax increases are considered a hardship. The amount is $235,000 less than the borough requested and $150,000 less than it received in 2006.
If the borough had received the full $335,000 in extraordinary aid it requested, an 11.3 percent proposed tax-rate increase would have been wiped out. However, because only a portion was received, that amount was only reduced.
Under the proposed $5.35 million tab, which is expected to be adopted Wednesday, the tax rate would increase 11.9 cents to $1.222 per $100 of assessed valuation. At that rate, the owner of a house assessed at the borough average of $124,000 would pay $1,515 in municipal taxes, $147 more than last year.
If the full $335,000 had been received, there would have been no increase in the tax rate, and residents would have paid $1.103 per $100 of assessed valuation. At that rate, the owner of a house assessed at the borough average would pay $1,368 in municipal taxes.
The budget also would increase the tax levy or the total amount to be raised by taxes by $299,822, or 11.33 percent, to $2.95 million.
The reason for the decrease in aid is that the state budgeted $9 million less this year for the extraordinary aid program, said DCA spokesman Chris Donnelly.
He said 108 municipalities applied for the aid and 80 received it.
Mayor Tony LaMantia said he believes the lower aid number is evidence that Gov. Jon Corzine is trying to force small towns like Jamesburg and Spotswood to consolidate with larger ones. He said many larger towns received more extraordinary aid than smaller towns this year.
"It just shows me that the state’s looking for small towns not to be able to operate," he said.
Mayor LaMantia said the borough had told the state that more aid was needed because of unfunded state mandates and a $150,000 contamination settlement with SERV Centers of New Jersey. However, the request went unheeded.
"We presented our case to them, and we told them what we had," he said. "They don’t care. It seems like they really don’t care. When it comes to extraordinary aid and keeping our taxes down, they give us less."
Borough Council member Otto Kostbar said the council had hoped to receive at least the same amount of aid as last year, adding that the lower number has negatively impacted the proposed budget.
"This is just a real body blow to our budget, and it’s going to obviously result in a significant tax increase," he said. "It’s small towns like us that don’t have room for ratables. We really count on state aid to help us out."

