NEW BRUNSWICK – The Middlesex County Freeholder Board unveiled a $398 million budget proposal on Jan. 10 that calls for the reduction of appropriations to below-2007 levels and a hiring freeze on nonessential county employees.
The draft budget includes a net tax levy of $282,447,000, which is the amount to be raised through taxes.
“Economy and cost-cutting notwithstanding, we may now have reached the point where, absent meaningful property tax reform at the state level, no amount of fiscal conservatism or efficiency by county government can offset the rising costs of goods and services, particularly when they are coupled with the additional costs and reduced revenues passed on to the county by the state and federal governments,” said Freeholder Director David B. Crabiel, who is the chairman of the county’s Administration and Finance Committee.
Crabiel said Middlesex has had one of the best county tax records in New Jersey for the past 15 years, and that the county has reduced the Equalized County Property Tax Rate 14 consecutive times and has reduced the amount to be raised by taxes seven times during the same time period.
“But absent meaningful tax reform, which I have proposed for the last 25 years, it is hard to see how, regardless of the efforts and economies practiced by this county government, that the property tax burden on our residents will do anything but increase,” he said.
The director said state and federal funding is shrinking in such critical areas as Medicaid, which directly affects county property tax subsidies to the Roosevelt Care Center in Edison, and mental health, since the state pays only 17 percent, instead of the statutory 90 percent of the cost to operate the Raritan Bay Mental Health Center.
He said the state and the federal governments also have added $5 million to the cost of running county government in 2008 alone. For example, the state bill for the Public Employee’s Retirement System has increased $1.92 million, the state bill for the Police and Fireman’s Retirement System has gone up $2.48 million and the county contribution for Social Security has been increased by nearly $750,000.
“Just these three state and federal increases have inflated the 2008 Middlesex County budget by approximately $5.15 million,” Crabiel said. “If the governor and the Legislature are unable or unwilling to deal with the issue of tax reform in New Jersey, then they should enact legislation that would convene a limited Constitutional Convention to allow the people to reform the property tax system in New Jersey for themselves. We, in Middlesex County government, have done and will continue to do all we can to reduce the property tax burden on our residents, but it is hard to continue to provide the best county services in the face of the worst system of property taxation, without some relief.”
The budget proposal also reflects a small increase in the county’s retained surplus to help maintain its existing AAA bond rating from Standard and Poor’s and the Aa1 rating from Moody’s Investors Services.
The proposed budget will be formally introduced on Feb. 4 with a public hearing and possible adoption scheduled for Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. Both meetings will be held in the Freeholders Meeting Room in the County Administration Building in New Brunswick.