South Brunswick Municipal Budget to Raise Tax Rate

The South Brunswick Township Council is expected to adopt the municipal budget at its meeting on May 24, a budget that is expected to raise the municipal tax rate to about 7.5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.  With the recent passage of the school budget during last month's election that carried a 12.2 cent tax rate increase per $100 of assessed valuation, South Brunswick residents could see a combined 20-cent increase on their tax bills.

"We're not happy with this at all," said Mayor Frank Gambatese.  "When you factor in the school and township, taxpayers of this town are going to be hit with a 20-cent increase, and that's a lot of money.  None of us here are happy about that, but there's not much we can do when we are hit with increases to health and pension costs, while staying within the 2 percent cap."

The final vote on the proposed budget has been tabled twice as the council attempted to cut the tax rate increase lower than the introduced 8-cent increase. The budget would increase the tax rate to about 80 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.  Under the the budget, the owner of a home assessed at the township average would see a $150 to $160 increase on their tax bill.  

The proposed budget cut spending by about $1 million from last year's $47.3 million spending plan.  

The budget includes six layoffs of municipal employees and 11 positions lost to attrition that will not be filled.  Over the last five years, South Brunswick is down 56 positions from layoffs and attrition, which reduced the township workforce from 295 people to 239 people.  The budget is about $6.5 million below the state statutory spending cap and is $194,000 below the statutory tax levy maximum.

Though the proposed budget was reduced by $1 million from last year, the tax rate increase is due to escalating pension and benefit costs and a drop in the township's total assessed value.  The cost of health benefits rose by about 16 percent this year, while the township's total assessed value decreased by 4.4 percent for 2011 to about $3.7 billion.  

The township's pension costs are about $3.7 million this year, an increase of about $3.6 million over the last six years and an increase of about $2 million over the last two years alone.  

"It's impossible to stay within the cap while keeping taxes level," Gambatese said.  "Had our pension and health costs not gone up, we would've been looking at about a 3.5-cent increase, and that's not bad in this economy.  Those two areas amounted to about a 4-cent increase alone, all this while the state still isn't making their payments to the pension system."

Councilman Joseph Camarota said the budget was about 98 percent complete, as there were a few lingering items to be addressed before adoption.  Of particular concern to the council is the further reduction of police staffing, which has seen an approximately 15 percent drop to about 70 positions over recent years.

"With some anticipated retirements coming, we need to look at the cold, hard facts about the safety, health and welfare of South Brunswick residents," Camarota said.  "This is starting to have an affect on the department, and (Chief Raymond Hayducka) is concerned.  We need to look at new ways that we can bring on more officers."

Deputy Mayor Chris Killmurray praised the work Hayducka and the rest of the South Brunswick Police Department have done managing with the staff reductions, but further concerns were raised about the long-term cost of overtime versus bringing in additional officers.

"Our police department does a fantastic job, but they need help," Gambatese said.

As they look for ways to increase police staffing levels, Gambatese said the affects from cuts to state aid in 2010 were still being felt.  The township is expected to receive about $5.2 million in state aid this year, after having aid cut by about $1.1 million last year.

"The governor says he's going to lower taxes as he constantly blames municipalities and schools, when he's the one withholding the state aid we're entitled to, money that was raised locally through our energy receipts tax," Gambatese said.   "If all of our pension and health costs stayed the same and if Gov. Christie left state aid alone, we would be looking at no tax increase. So it's a lie when he says it's the towns that are raising taxes, when it's the state taking money that belongs to municipalities.   The cost of pensions is recalculated because the state doesn't make its payments, which makes things worse for the towns and that's not right.

"Everybody praises the great job he's done, when to me he really hasn't done diddly. What's the benefits of all these cuts he's made?  Just look at Route 1, Route 130 and Route 27.  Those are state roads and they're atrocious and not maintained, with nothing but potholes.  What are we getting for our money?"

The council is expected to adopt the municipal budget at its meeting on May 24.