Brick Council Approves Amended 2017 Budget

BRICK, NJ — The Brick Township Council approved the final amended township budget for 2017 on Tuesday night that includes a decrease in the municipal tax rate for the first time in at least 30 years.

But some residents said the tax decrease should have been larger.

George Scott and Vic Fanelli, both longtime critics of township government, raised questions during the public hearing on the budget Tuesday night, both urging the township to use more surplus to offset the tax levy. The township is anticipating $21 million in surplus in 2017, with about $10 million going into reserve.

"That's our money there," Fanelli said. "I'd rather have it come back to the taxpayers."

Business administrator Joanne Bergin said the standard practice is to apply only as much surplus in a budget as can be reasonably replaced the following year.

"The more you take from surplus (to offset the tax levy) the more you have to replace," she said, with most governing bodies using roughly half of surplus in a given year for that reason.

Scott asked about the difference in anticipated revenues in the township; in 2016 the township's revenues were $113 million, and the 2017 budget estimates $101 million in anticipated revenues.

"That's a $12 million difference," Scott said, and focused on two line items where he felt there was a drastic change in anticipated revenues from what the township collected in 2016: beach revenues and construction permits. In 2016, the township collected $414,389 from beach badges and beach parking, but the anticipated figure for 2017 was $300,000. Uniform Construction Code fees — permit fees paid for construction projects — brought in $3.517 million in 2016, but the anticipated figure for 2017 is $2.706 million, a difference of more than $800,000. "Again, not a small number," Scott said.

Bergin said the differences were a result of the township being conservative in the revenue estimates. At the time the budget was compiled, there were concerns about how the impending Army Corps of Engineers dune project would affect beach season, Bergin said. The 2017 anticipated revenue for the construction fees is lower because the township's construction officials believe the post-Sandy reconstruction work, which has fueled much of the permit revenues in the last two years has peaked and has begun to decline, Bergin said. She said the amended budget includes figures for both the beach revenues and the permit fees that were revised upward.

Scott pressed her for specifics on how much the township has received in permit revenues through the first quarter but Bergin did not have the number immediately available.

Scott and Fanelli also questioned a $1 million donation from the Brick Township MUA to the township.

"I don't want to see a rate increase from the MUA down the line for infrastructure," Scott said, noting the 2017 donation was not the first.

"I would have rather seen a rate decrease," Fanelli said.

Fanelli also criticized the township's debt. Currently, the township has a debt of $151 million, a decrease of $17 million from the $168 million at the beginning of 2014. "I still think that ($151 million) is too much," he said.

The municipal purposes tax rate will be 68.5 cents per $100 of assessed value and result in a reduction of $14.71 in municipal taxes for a home with an average assessment of $294,100, township officials have said.

Photo by Karen Wall