SEA BRIGHT — After a delay in the receipt of a $406,000 grant to repair and improve the borough’s riverside bulkhead, the Borough Council has been forced to amend the budget.
Finance Director Michael Bascom said last week the grant, funded by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), is still expected to be awarded this year but has not yet been received, forcing the budget amendment.
“When we introduced the budget we thought we were going to get that grant before the budget adoption, but it is not going to come in time,” Bascom said. “It might come this year, but they just didn’t finish it in time for the budget adoption.
“If it comes through this year it will be a budget amendment and be added back in later this year.”
The Borough Council introduced the amendment, which includes several other line item changes, during the July 7 meeting. A public hearing on the amendment is scheduled for July 16 at 8:30 a.m.
Acting Borough Administrator Joseph Verruni said the grant was intended for the engineering work associated with the bulkhead and despite the delay in the grant, the borough is proceeding with the project.
“T&M is working on it. We plan on getting reimbursed by the state and we are going to do the engineering,” he said. “In order to protect the downtown and our residents, we are going to proceed with the project.”
While the removal of the grant funds from the budget may only be temporary, Bascom explained some of the other changes in the budget.
“The two real things in the amendment are we adjusted the essential services grant by about $20,000 and then added about [$25,000] in appropriations to the beach utility, pretty much because they opened that Anchorage Beach on the weekends now,” Bascom said.
“There’s really nothing major about the amendment at all.”
The borough will receive $732,000 from the Essential Services Grant after originally allocating for $752,000.
The program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is designed to fund a variety of services, including police and public works salaries, and solid waste disposal for disaster impacted communities.
According to Bascom, the borough received the maximum amount allowed under the program.
“What we did get was the maximum allowable,” Bascom said. “We put in what we requested and then when they did the formula we actually qualified for the maximum amount.”
The council also appropriated $585,000 for beach utilities after originally proposing $559,000.
The 2015 municipal budget, which is heavily supported by grant revenues related to superstorm Sandy, carries a tax hike of $291 on the average home.
With the amendment the budget totals $9.9 million, after originally totaling $10.3 million and includes $4.1 million in storm debt repayments.
The borough is down $80 million in total taxable assessed valuation as a result of Sandy. The borough’s valuation went from $518 million before the October 2012 storm to $437.8 million this year, Bascom said.
The $9.9 million budget represents an increase over last year’s $9.4 million spending plan. The tab would increase the tax levy from last year’s $3.7 million to $3.9 million, which was not impacted by the budget amendment.
The municipal tax rate, also not impacted by the amendment, will increase by 3 cents to 89 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
The owner of a property assessed at the borough average of $367,300 could expect to pay $3,267 in municipal taxes this year, or $290 more than last year. Municipal taxes are just one portion of a homeowner’s overall property tax bill, and are separate from school and county taxes and other assessments.