By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Dismayed by proposed state legislation that would prevent municipalities from enacting user fees for some municipal services, Lawrence Township officials say the law essentially handcuffs a town’s flexibility in handling how it administers its services.
The state Senate approved the bill last week, and a companion measure is awaiting action in the state Assembly. The Senate bill was sponsored by Sen. Stephen Sweeney, who has claimed user fees are a means to circumvent the state-imposed 2-percent cap on increases to the municipal tax levy.
The legislation would disallow municipalities from charging a user fee for traditional municipal services, which it defines as “including, but not limited to, the clearing and lighting of streets, the collection and disposal of solid waste, leaves and recyclable materials along the road and streets, general police patrol and response, and fire response.”
Those are services that have been funded through the municipal budget. If a user fee is established by a municipality, the cost of that fee would be counted against the 2-percent cap on increases to the municipal property tax levy.
If the 2-percent cap means a municipality could increase the municipal tax levy by $450,000, but the user fee would generate $200,000, then the amount raised by the user fee would be counted against the $450,000 increase in the tax levy meaning the tax levy could be raised by $250,000, not $450,000.
Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun said that while the legislation makes it clear that a user fee could not be charged for trash collection or leaf pickup, “it is not clear” whether the proposed legislation would apply to other fees, such as those charged for Recreation Department or Health Department programs.
There is a fee to participate in Recreation Department programs and the Health Department charges $15 for flu shots, for example, but the proposed legislation does not make it clear whether user fees such as those would be affected, Mr. Krawczun said.
Earlier this year, township officials proposed removing the cost of trash collection and disposal from the 2012 municipal budget and charging each property owner $336 per year which is a user fee, as defined by Sen. Sweeney’s bill for the service, if voters rejected a referendum question to increase the municipal property tax rate by an additional 9 cents. The proposed 2012 municipal budget already contained a 5-cent tax rate increase.
The need for the 9-cent increase, which would have generated$2.3 million, was to preserve the surplus fund for use in future municipal budgets. To comply with the 2-percent cap on increases to the municipal property tax levy, it would have been necessary to move $4.87 million of the $5 million surplus fund into the 2012 municipal budget as a source of revenue.
But voters rejected the request by a nearly 2-1 margin when the question was put to them at the April 17 school board election. The result is that the township is using up most of its budget surplus for the 2012 municipal budget.
It is also laying off 13 employees, including three police officers, and reducing the hours of another employee to save money in an anticipation of the 2013 municipal budget.

