Barnegat's Budget Approved in 3-2 Vote

The Barnegat Township Committee approved the 2011 municipal budget by a vote of three to two following a heated special amendment hearing yesterday evening in the .

The approval of the $20.5 million budget was pushed to Monday to allow for changes required by the state, which had handed down a mandate that the township eliminate a more than $800,000 deficit blamed on a high number of tax appeals.

That means a slightly smaller budget was approved than the , which totaled $21.3 million. The tax rate, however, remained at $0.722 per $100 of assessed value, an increase of $0.12 per $100 over last year’s rate.

Whether residents’ tax bills will go up or down will depend on how they were affected by the recent reassessment, but a property owner with a home assessed at the township average of $238,167 would pay $1,720 for the year. The average assessed value prior to the revaluation was $297,351 while the tax rate was $0.602 per $100 of assessed value, which resulted in a payment of $1,790. That figure does not include the school or county taxes.

“This is a responsible budget that takes into account all that is needed to continue the quality of life services that are so important to Barnegat residents,” said mayor Jeffrey Melchiondo, who pointed out that due to staffing and other cuts, the 2011 budget comes in at more than $400,000 less than last year’s spending plan.

Deputy Mayor Al Cirulli said nobody on the committee is happy about raising the tax rate, but with tumbling property values offering less tax revenue, they have little choice.

“How many cuts are you going to make before nobody’s going to live in your town?” he said. “This is the best we can do. I don’t care who you bring in here, you’re not going to do much better unless you cut with an ax.”

Still, two on the dais declined to vote for the budget.

Committeeman Leonard Morano, the committee’s sole Democrat, said the budget didn’t do enough to lessen the tax burden on residents, some of whom will get a tax increase in the same year they saw the assessed value of their homes drop.

“When your rate goes up, it hurts everybody,” he said. “There’s no way I could go for this budget.”

Republican Committeeman Martin Lisella, who is running this fall to keep his seat, praised the budget but said he was voting no in protest of the state’s "unfair" property tax assessment system.

Lisella said Barnegat’s 2011 budget cuts spending, lowers the tax levy by more than $30,000 compared to last year and keeps spending to under $1,000 per capita, “which is a significant accomplishment for a local government in New Jersey.”

Residents who do see a tax increase can blame the state, he said.

“This increase is a result of the inconsistent and haphazard manner in which assessments are performed in New Jersey. The system is flawed, broken and it must be fixed, and fixed now, for if it is not, Barnegat faces the real potential of having many tax appeals filed next year that will devastate the financial stability of this community.”

Several residents criticized the committee for what they said was a drawn-out and yet still less than thorough budget process.

“For years, we had a budget committee that went over this budget item by item,” said Jake Taylor. Now, he said, there’s no public discussion and no chance for the entire committee to look over the budget at once.

“You don’t do it the proper way,” he said. “You don’t inform the public. You just dump it on everybody, and that is just wrong.”

Frank Pecci said the fact that so many committee members were unhappy with the budget told him it needed to be crafted differently.

When the budget was introduced earlier in the year, “there were several members of the committee who said the only reason they’re voting for it is to send it to the state,” Pecci said. “If you really worked on this budget, it shouldn’t have come as a shock to you. Maybe we should take a better look at this thing.”