SAYREVILLE — This year’s municipal budget will introduce a 7-cent tax increase if approved as it was presented during the public hearing April 23.
The finance committee has been unable to reduce the $52.5 million budget, which is up nearly $800,000 from last year. The budget remains under both the appropriations and levy caps, by 2.2 million and $190, respectively.
However, the proposed budget still invokes a $98 tax hike on a house assessed at the borough average of $143,700. The highest assessed home of $642,400 will feel the impact of a $437 tax increase.
Paired with the recently passed Sayreville school budget, which calls for a $60.63 tax increase, residents of the average assessed home could witness a total increase of approximately $158.
Chief Financial Officer Wayne Kronowski said he and the finance committee have done as much to cut spending and reduce the tax impact as possible, and it is now up to the Mayor and Borough Council to work on it. Mayor Kennedy O’Brien has been away and absent from the last two council meetings but will return this week in time for a scheduled budget workshop on April 30.
“The finance committee has worked on the budget, and at this point it is the council’s budget,” Kronowski said. “We need to go over the capital budget again, and I think the whole council should be there because it affects so many different departments.”
According to a budget package available at the hearing, capital requests have already been scrutinized to assure the need is justified. A total of $200,000 in capital improvements is slated for this year. Included in the 2012 capital budget is funding for the Kennedy Park school roof, the recreation center side stairs, the Major Drive fishing dock and the Sayreville Middle School roof. An allotment of $10 million is listed for Weber Avenue flood control.
Barbara Kilcommons, a resident of Schmitt Street, said any appropriation to Weber Avenue is justified because the residents of the area deserve relief from years of flooding but disapproved of the majority of the borough’s spending.
“I am adamantly against raising our taxes,” she told the council. “It’s a million dollars here and a million dollars there. We have not frozen our expenditures. We bond and bond and bond, and somebody has got to put the brakes on this town spending money.”
Kilcommons went on to say the borough officials did not consider retirees or young money-strapped couples when putting the budget together. “If you took the majority of people in the Melrose section, Morgan and Tangletown, they truly can’t afford this,” she said.
Council member Mary Novak denied Kilcommons’ claim that the impact on certain residents was not considered during the budget process and said she and the other council members will continue to work on the budget until it is finalized.
“We are still going to working to reduce this,” she said. “We are trying to think of everybody. I was a young single mother, so I know what it is like. I plan on working just as hard as everybody here to make sure this comes in much lower than it is now.”
The largest portions of the budget were appropriated for public safety in the amount of $13.1 million, insurance for $6.7 million and public works for $7 million. Funds allotted for salaries and wages increased by more than $724,000 since last year, and the borough was also hit hard by $177,000 in emergency costs during Hurricane Irene.
The council and administration will meet to discuss budget issues on April 30 at 6:30 p.m.
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