BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer
EATONTOWN – Property owners here will pay an average of $158 monthly in municipal taxes under the 2006 municipal budget adopted last week by the Borough Council.
The $19.8 million budget carries a total property tax levy of $10.9 million, which is $784,371, or 7.8 percent, more than the 2005 tax levy of $10.1 million, according to Lesley Connolly, the borough’s chief financial officer.
Altogether, this year’s budget amounts to $1.5 million, or 8.7 percent, more than the $18.2 million budget adopted for calendar year 2005.
Using figures from the borough reassessment of properties conducted last year, the new property tax rate for 2006 is 41.4 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, according to finance department documents.
As a result, a home assessed at the borough average of $450,000, as re-evaluated, will pay $1,863 annually in local municipal taxes.
With the recent revaluation, Eatontown’s net valuation taxable ratable base is $2.634 billion, compared to $1.07 billion in 2005, a difference of $1.564 billion or 146 percent, said Connolly and Robert S. Oliwa, the borough’s registered accountant.
When the total ratable base is divided by $63,630,733, the amount representing an individual tax point, the new tax rate equals 40.4 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
No one from the public addressed the municipal budget during the hearing that preceded the council’s vote.
This year, the borough will use slightly more than $4 million from its surplus as a means of minimizing the impact of the revaluation upon taxpayers, Tarantolo said.
The use of that surplus, amounting to $4.025 million, will leave a balance of $2.1 million in that account, finance department documents show.
In 2005, the borough used $3.6 million from its surplus.
Going forward, the borough will seek new ways to generate revenue to build on the surplus, Tarantolo said.
The revaluation has shifted the tax burden from commercial to residential taxpayers, noted Council President Theodore F. Lewis Jr., who chairs the governing body’s finance committee.
The finance committee took into account the impact of the revaluation upon homeowners when crafting the budget, he explained.
In the end, the final spending plan strikes a reasonable tax rate while maintaining current personnel and municipal services, Lewis said.
“Short of cutting staff or services, there is no way to make a meaningful dent in this budget,” Lewis said.
The largest appropriation increases are in six separate areas: $166,593 for police salaries and wages; $99,200 for employee sick time buy-back; $213,712 for the Police and Firemen’s Retirement System (PFRS) and the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS); $158,590 for health insurance; $500,000 for the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Grant; and $320,763 for debt service, according to finance department documents.
The PFRS fund is slated to receive $187,104 in what is now the third of its five phase-in years, and $26,608 is allotted for the PERS fund, now in the second of five phase-in years.
The budget also sets aside $28,000 for fuel costs, $25,000 for increased service fees for the Monmouth County Reclamation Center, and $16,700 for utilities, all areas of major price hikes, Connolly said.
Salaries and benefits for borough employees, as negotiated by collective bargaining agreements, comprise 56 percent of the municipal budget, finance department documents state.
Presently the borough is in negotiations with two of those units, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Connolly reported.
The current Policemen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) contract with the borough remains in effect through 2007, she added.
Major projects listed in the borough’s capital budget, which totals $980,000, include $200,000 for improvements to Industrial Way, $175,000 to acquire a bus garage, $135,000 to enter an interlocal agreement with Tinton Falls for Pop Warner football fields in that borough, $105,000 for building improvements, $100,000 to remove underground storage tanks, and $100,000 for roadwork and paving.
The capital budget also calls for $65,000 for improvements and equipment for borough parks, $50,000 to acquire land for the planned downtown redevelopment, and another $50,000 for that redevelopment project itself, finance department documents show.
The figures in the municipal budget represent only borough taxes, not those of the Eatontown Board of Education, the Monmouth Regional High School District, to which Eatontown sends its public high school students, or the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders.