Belleville Town Budget Means Small Tax Hike For Homeowners

BELLEVILLE, NJ — The average Belleville homeowner will see a small hike to the municipal portion of their property taxes under this year’s town budget.

The Belleville Town Council unanimously adopted their annual spending plan on Tuesday evening, holding a public hearing on the municipal budget (watch the video below).

The budget appropriates $56.08 million for municipal purposes. It will mean a $48 tax increase for the averaged assessed home at $278,000.

According to Mayor Michael Melham, the biggest drivers to the budget “by far” were:

• “A $2 million dollar increase to our insurance costs”
• “Unfunded federal mandate to replace a percentage of lead service lines, $5 million bond”
• “Because of bail reform, which I’m an outspoken critic of, our courts have been neutered to enforce laws, therefore, court revenue is down $600,000.”

Melham said that on the revenue side of things, “regrettably, we needed to increase our water rate … this allowed our water utility to finally become fiscally solvent.”

Property taxes in New Jersey are made up of three parts: school, municipal and county. Last year, the average property owner in the state paid roughly 52.9 percent of their total for school taxes, 29.4 percent for municipal taxes and 17.8 percent for county taxes.

In Belleville, that breakdown was 38.3 percent for school taxes, 48.3 percent for municipal taxes and 13.4 percent for county taxes.

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