Barnegat Municipal Budget Up $855,000 This Year

Barnegat taxpayers with homes assessed at the township average of $237,548 will pay an extra $171 a year, to support the $24.2 million municipal budget.

The Township Committee recently adopted the budget, which is up $855,000 over last year, according to The Sandpaper.

The municipal purposes tax rate will rise 7.2 cents for each $100 of assessed valuation.

“It is a sound and prudent budget and meets all our pension and debt obligation,” said Chief Financial Officer Thomas Lombarski. “It’s been approved by our auditor and now the state has approved it, so we were able to act on it.”

Township Administrator Martin Lisella said the budget has "very little fluff."

“Department heads submitted their budget figures, and we all reviewed them to make sure that expenses were as tight as possible,” he said.

The cost of employee health benefits ballooned from $1,947,170 in 2015 to $2,424,358 for 2016.

Lombarski said the state aid remained the same, at $1,048,932.

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