By JoanneDegnan, Staff Writer
ROBBINSVILLE — It’s no April Fools’ joke.
Township municipal offices will be open Friday, April 1, for the first time in a year and then every Friday thereafter.
The Township Council on March 24 introduced a $20.3 million municipal operating budget for 2011 that contains no increase in the local tax rate and provides sufficient funds to rescind nonuniformed employee furloughs that had closed municipal offices Fridays.
In anticipation of the budget’s passage, Mayor Dave Fried signed an ordinance Monday, restoring the salaries of nonunion municipal workers who took pay cuts last year ranging between 5 and 10 percent in returned for reduced work hours. The action means municipal offices will reopen Friday for the first time in a year.
Friday furloughs have been an inconvenience to residents who have been unable to obtain construction permits, marriage licenses or reach just about anybody in town hall on a Friday when municipal offices have been closed.
The salary ordinance rescinding the furloughs was approved 3-1 at the same March 24 Township Council meeting. Councilman David Boyne, who previously has taken issue with a section of the ordinance that made the salary readjustments retroactive to Jan. 1 for workers who took pay cuts without furloughs, cast the lone dissenting vote.
The municipal budget, which was introduced separately by a 4-0 vote, has a $13.1 million levy that holds the municipal tax rate to 52.8 cents per $100 in assessed valuation, the same rate as it was in 2010. A home assessed at the new townshipwide average of $385,000 would pay $2,032 a year in municipal taxes.
The public hearing on the 2011 municipal budget is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. April 28 in the township courtroom.
The proposed municipal levy, which is the total amount that would be raised through taxation, is $488,965 less than the increase allowable under the state’s new 2 percent cap law.
Last year, Robbinsville’s budget took a substantial hit from successful commercial tax appeals, which led to a 12-cent increase in the tax rate. The township needed a $2.39 million cap waiver from the state to allow it to exceed what was then a 4 percent cap, and municipal property taxes increased 30 percent.
Township officials have said the economic outlook is much better this year for Robbinsville because the large commercial tax appeals that crippled last year’s budget are finished. The tax rate will stay flat for 2011.
Robbinsville’s 2011 budget reflects several large grants, including $250,000 for repairs to Spring Garden Road, a $700,604 federal grant that pays the salaries of new firefighters and $51,228 in federal money for firefighting equipment.
The budget also provides funds for a number of capital improvement projects, including $103,000 for the demolition of the old municipal building on Route 130, which has been abandoned since a 2005 flood. The building, which was constructed in 1923, has widespread mold on walls and doors.
The budget document also lists a $1.6 million capital improvement project to construct sewer lines for houses with failing septic systems on Buckley Lane and nearby Robbinsville-Edinburg Road.

