By John Tredrea, Special Writer
A Hopewell Borough budget for 2015 that will bring a municipal tax rate increase of 3½ cents per $100 of assessed property value was adopted by the Borough Council on June 4.
The budget’s bottom line of $2,698,713 is down slightly from last year’s total of $2,699,706. It’s because the borough-wide total of property assessments is down that the tax rate increase is necessary, officials said.
“All things being equal, the budget is essentially flat,” said Borough Administrator Michele Hovan. “The tax levy is flat; it’s just that the total assessments are down 6 percent. What this means is that folks with reduced assessments will see a municipal tax decrease; higher assessments will see an increase proportionate to the real estate value increase.”
The 3½cent-tax increase brings the municipal rate to 55.3 cents. Property tax bills include bills for school, county and fire district taxes as well as municipal taxes.
“For someone with a house assessed at the borough average of $404,359, the municipal portion of the property tax bill in 2015 will be $2,236,” Ms. Hovan said. “Applying the average 6 percent reduction in assessed value, the municipal portion of the tax bill in 2014 would have been $2,220.”
She noted appropriations this year are down by $5,400.
“We are using $268,000 in surplus for this budget,” Ms. Hovan said. “We used that same figure in 2014 and then returned $372,938 to our fund balance. Our fund balance as of Dec. 31, 2014, was $533,370 — the highest it has been in over 6 years.”
