By KAYLA J. MARSH
Staff Writer
LITTLE SILVER — The Borough Council has introduced a $10.4 million budget that will decrease municipal taxes for many residents.
The budget, introduced at the council’s March 21 meeting, includes a tax levy of $6,989,000 — a 2.18 percent increase from last year’s tax levy of $6,840,218.
Borough Administrator Kimberly Jungfer said the borough’s budget includes a municipal tax rate of 42.8 cents per $100 of assessed value, down from 43.1 cents in 2015.
This means that the owner of a home assessed at the borough average of $647,760 will pay approximately $2,714 in municipal taxes per year — a decrease of around $19.42 for borough residents in their municipal purpose tax bill this year.
“Everybody’s operating budget basically stayed flat … and I would say it was an easy budget year from our aspect of putting it together because everybody’s spending was pretty much contained to what it was last year,” Jungfer said.
The governing body said the proposed budget is in compliance with state law.
“We tried to stay as close to that 2 percent increase as we could and we did,” Jungfer said.
“We’re still under the state-mandated 2 percent cap, but part of the reason for the increase is that last year we started a shared services agreement with Rumson for construction in July, and now we are paying the full amount and we were also able to anticipate double the revenues from the last six months so there is an increase in the appropriations, but on other side there is also increased revenue so it more than offsets the increase on the appropriations line.”
Little Silver’s Chief Financial Officer Laura Geraghty said, that while the amount to be raised by taxation went up, it was less than what is allowed under the Tax Levy CAP.
“The amount to be raised by taxation went up $149,008, but that is less than a penny on the tax rate,” she said. “The penny on the tax rate equates to $163,000.”
Jungfer said with this year’s budget, health insurance stayed flat for the third year in a row.
“You have a lot of people paying real close attention to the budget, understanding where we all are, and I think we’re managing [our health insurance] well,” Councilman Dane Mihlon said. “Our program has worked really well and it is going to get better.
“What we created and put in place a few years ago is paying dividends year-in and year-out, and when you look at municipal, county or state, their health insurance costs are going up while ours are remaining flat … and as something that raised a lot of eyebrows, it is a successful program and works.”