Municipal property taxes will remain flat for the 10th consecutive year in East Windsor.
The East Windsor Township Council adopted a $24.1 million budget at its June 7 meeting.
Officials said the property tax rate will remain at 43 cents per $100 of assessed value. The owner of a house assessed at the township average of $259,455 will pay $1,124 in municipal property taxes, officials said.
Municipal property taxes are one item on a property owner’s total tax bill, which includes school district taxes and county taxes.
Municipalities rely on several sources of revenue to support the budget – from the use of surplus funds (savings) to miscellaneous revenues such as licenses, fees and permits, municipal court fines and costs, and a hotel tax. The rest is raised through property taxes.
Township officials will collect $12.3 million from East Windsor’s residential and commercial property owners to support the budget.
The 2022 budget includes revenues from alcoholic beverage licenses totaling $32,950, municipal court fines and fees totaling $233,603 and a hotel tax totaling $195,664.
In addition, the township will receive revenues from construction code fees totaling $387,572 and from shared service agreements for animal control, the senior citizens center and police dispatching services totaling $260,792.
Officials will apply $3.3 million from the township’s surplus fund to support the budget. The township’s state aid has remained flat since 2010 at $3.5 million.
On the spending side, the budget allocates $5 million for police department salaries and $349,102 in other expenses, such as general administration, support service and training.
The budget for the Department of Public Works allocates $668,010 in salaries and $430,245 for road repairs, maintenance of municipally-owned buildings and the municipal fleet of cars and trucks.
Mayor Janice Mironov said the township faced a number of challenges in preparing the budget.
“In the climate that we are in right now, some revenues did not reach where they should have been,” she said. “The expected revenues from the municipal court, the hotel tax, the cable TV franchise fee and interest on earned investments were less than anticipated.”
There were increases in the budget for health benefits, insurance and the capital improvement fund.
Nevertheless, township officials said they were able to craft a budget that did not require a municipal property tax increase.
“This no tax increase budget is a fiscally conservative budget document that serves our community and retains all existing service levels,” Mironov said noting the tax base increased by $26 million.
Township officials had taken steps to make permanent financing for all existing debt in 2020 at an interest rate of 1.23% for 11 years, which has continued to generate significant savings for the township, she said.