BURLINGTON COUNTY: Towns see dip in state aid

By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
All nine municipalities in Northern Burlington County would receive less state aid this year under Gov. Jon S. Corzine’s proposed budget.
    Chesterfield and Mansfield would both see reductions of over 4 percent. The former is expected to get $669,778 from the state, while the latter would receive $646,720.
    Mansfield Township Administrator Joseph Broski said Monday township officials did not expect to see a reduction in aid.
    “You always hope,” he said, “but we never expected we were going to take a loss. The mayor and committee are more than a little upset about this, because almost 50 percent of our residents are senior citizens who are forced to take the hit on this,” he said.
    Mr. Broski said the township will examine the cuts at the committee’s workshop meeting Wednesday.
    At the committee’s March 11 meeting, Mansfield Chief Financial Officer Joseph Monzo addressed the current state of the economy before a presentation on the municipal budget.
    “In the nearly 30 years that I have been doing this I can honestly say that 2009 is the most difficult one that I have been involved in,” he said.
    Contrasting local government to private entities that have received bailout packages from the federal government, he said townships provide necessary services and must continue to function.
    “It is time for all those involved in our collective problems to bring solutions to the table,” he said.
    He said Friday the township is “not even close” to finishing its budget, and still has to factor in its loss in state aid. The township’s surplus, he said, is down approximately $900,000 from the end of the previous year.
    Mansfield is tentatively scheduled to introduce its budget at the committee’s April 8 meeting.
    Chesterfield Township Clerk Bonnie Haines said Monday that in previous meetings, township officials had discussed keeping the tax rate flat by making up for state aid cuts out of surplus funds.
    “Obviously none of us are happy about it, but it is what it is,” she said, noting she had not yet had the opportunity to discuss the matter with the Township Committee.
    Other townships had different figures. In the middle are Bordentown Township, New Hanover, and North Hanover, which would see cuts of over 3 percent, for aid allocations of about $1.27 million, $980,388, and $381,056, respectively.
    The remaining local municipalities were not hit as hard by the proposed cuts. The decrease in aid would be less than 3 percent for Fieldsboro, which would receive $111,504 from the state; Florence, which would get nearly $1.7 million; and Springfield, which would take in $536,509.
    Bordentown City would escape relatively unscathed with $475,798 in state aid, a cut of about 1.5 percent.
    Mayor John Collom III said Monday he was relatively pleased with the city’s numbers.
    “I’m very happy they didn’t take away as much as they could have,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect, but I was afraid they’d cut us more than they did.
    “There’s that much less support from the state, which will impinge upon the money we have available to use for budgets here, of course, but it could have been much worse.”
    Details on the aid for each municipality are available online at www.state.nj.us/dca/lgs/muniaid/aidmenu.shtml.