Insurance hike
helps to drive
budget over
$10M plateau
By clare marie celano
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD — A $10 million budget to operate the borough this year will necessitate a projected 3.6-cent increase in the municipal tax rate.
Borough Administrator Joseph Bellina presented the figures at a special Borough Council budget meeting held Feb. 26.
The budget was expected to be formally introduced at Monday’s regular council meeting.
This year’s municipal budget will total $10.03 million, a figure which is up $484,000 from the 2002 budget of $9.5 million. The spending plan will raise the municipal tax rate from $1.047 to $1.083 per $100 of assessed valuation, although additional state aid could help reduce the increase, Bellina said.
If adopted by the council, the budget means the owner of property assessed at $120,000 will pay $1,300 in municipal taxes in 2003, up from $1,256 in 2002. The owner of property assessed at $150,000 will pay $1,624 in municipal taxes in 2003, up from $1,570 in 2002.
Municipal taxes are one portion of a borough property owner’s tax bill. Other taxes are paid to the Freehold Borough School District, to the Freehold Regional High School District and to Monmouth County.
The 2003 budget proposes the collection of $5.2 million in local taxes to support the spending plan. In 2002, borough residents paid a total of $5 million to support the budget.
Bellina said the projected 3.6-cent increase in the tax rate would most likely see a reduction after the town applied for a grant for extraordinary aid.
"Our need for aid is easy to justify based on the costs incurred by the quality of life court sessions," Bellina said. "When you apply for these grants, you need something to distinguish yourself from every other town. In all likelihood, that figure will dip down below 3 cents. I think it will probably take at least a penny off of that."
At last week’s special meeting, Bellina presented highlights of the budget which was expected to be formally introduced at the council’s March 3 meeting. Among the items discussed were salaries and wages, which will see an increase of $335,000 this year.
Bellina told council members the increase is due in part to several new full-time positions, including a new code enforcement officer, a police dispatcher, patrolmen and an additional special police officer for the Quality of Life Enforcement Team. He said the quality of life special court sessions will soon be paying their own way through fines it has and will collect.
The special quality of life court sessions hear cases that generally involve housing, code enforcement and social violations. Tens of thousands of dollars in fines were collected in several court sessions that were held in 2002.
In other budget areas, the finance department saw a $5,000 reduction in expenses.
Insurance costs in the proposed budget will be up $175,000 over 2002, according to the administrator. This constitutes a 20 percent jump. Bellina added that the worker’s compensation fund will see an increase of $50,000 this year as well.
New weapons and equipment for the training room at the new police headquarters are also items in the proposed budget. The figure for the weapons and accompanying ammunition is $22,000.
The borough fire department will see an increase of $3,000 in order to test 23 of the 45 air packs that belong to the department. Bellina said the self-contained breathing units must be recertified every other year and need to be replaced every 15 years. He plans to replace eight each year.
The proposed debt service for the 2003 budget is $400,000, which Bellina said is less that 10 percent of the budget, a percentage, he said, that was "pretty good."
The capital budget will see roads improvements to Broad Street at a cost of about $200,000. A $150,000 grant from the state Department of Transportation has already been received for this project, according to Bellina.
A portion of that grant will also be applied to modernize the borough’s water and sewer lines.
A new leaf loader, a piece of equipment that Bellina said is "very versatile and useful," will be added to the two the borough already has.
A public hearing on the budget will be held at Borough Hall on April 1.
Councilman Robert Crawford, who oversees the finances of the council, sees the figures as being fine-tuned after the budget is introduced at the council meeting on March 3.
"We’ll know more on (March 3)," Crawford said. "Nothing is locked in. We’re going to do our best to tighten our belts as much as we can and continue to fine-tune the budget, but there are certain costs we can’t do anything about, like wage agreements we had from several year ago. Other costs are fixed and not negotiable."
Citing the largest increase in the proposed budget as the cost of insurance, which Crawford said is a 20 percent jump, the councilman said the $1 million insurance bill accounts for more than 7 percent of the total budget.