Tax Bill Would Rise About $71 in Borough Budget

Hopatcong introduced a budget that would raise property taxes $71 on an average borough home Wednesday night.

The new tax rate of 60.3 cents per $100 of assessed valuation is up from 58 cents in 2011. For the owner of a home valued at the borough average of $309,000, that means a municipal tax payment of $1,863, . Those figures don't include taxes for school district and county expenditures, which fall under their own budgets.

.

Assessed property value

2012 municipal property tax

2011 municipal property tax

$200,000

$1,206

$1,160

$400,000

$2,412

$2,320

$600,000

$3,618

$3,480

$4,824

The entire council seemed to back the $16,179,793 budget—$1,027,442 more than last year's—though it still must face an April 4 vote during a public hearing.

Councilman Richard Bunce said Hopatcong "barely raised taxes."

"I think we put a real good budget together," said Bunce, chairman of the finance committee. "It really, in the times that we're facing where the economy is so difficult and where inflation is sot terrible—look at gas prices, look at fuel prices, look at everything going up—we're paying for services to the ninth degree."

"And we barely raised taxes. And you don't want to raise taxes at all if you can avoid it," Bunce continued. "But show me something that's not going up right now."

The tax levy—the total amount of tax dollars raised borough-wide—could have increased to 3.28 percent if the borough had used the full amount of money available under the 2-percent cap. State law prohibits the levy from growing more than 2 percent year over year, but makes exceptions for expenses such as pensions and health insurance payments. But even with those exceptions, Hopatcong would be $388,164 beneath the 2-percent cap in the proposed spending plan.

Legally, the tax levy for items under the 2-percent cap could have been as high as $12,427,381 instead of the proposed $12,039,217, officials said.

Baker said staying beneath the 2-percent cap wasn't easy.

"There are things that increase [in price] that we have no control over," he said. "And companies don't really care that the government put a 2-percent cap on spending."

Some departmental requests had to be denied during the budget-forming process, Bunce said.

"No big-ticket items," he said. "Just enough to keep everything rolling. Hopefully times get better and you can do a little bit more.

“Right now, we'd prefer not to have a 20-year-old plow on the street. But right now it runs and, right now, we'll just have to deal with it."

Most costs would rise within the proposed budget.

The general government line item—which accountant Paul Lerch, of Lerch, Vinci & Higgins, said includes administration, collections and staff—would raise $447,107, up to $3,054,619 in from $2,607,512 in 2011. Lerch said $300,000 of that increase would come from a $300,000 settlement PSE&G made with Hopatcong regarding its proposed Susquehanna-Roseland power line project.

Capital improvements would raise $229,530, up to $305,120 from $75,590 in 2011, due to a Department of Transportation grant, Lerch said.

Other increases included debt service—up $161,290 to $1,176,170 from $1,014,880 in 2011; restitution for uncollected taxes—up $180,000 to $1,480,000 from $1,300,000 in 2011; and public works—up $104,996 to $1,655,272 from $1,550,276 in 2011.

Police was one of two line items to see cuts, dropping $183,425, down to $2,920,838 from $3,104,263 in 2011. Lerch said retirements were a main factor in the drop. Statutory and fixed charges, such as pension payments and social security, also fell $115,773, to $1,439,689 from $1,555,462 in 2011. Lerch said revisions in state math helped municipalities save on those costs this year.

"I think we have a good budget," Councilman Mike Francis said. "It's respectable and reasonable and it took a little bit of effort."

What do you think about the property tax increase? About the budget? Tell us in the comments.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said the budget increased the tax levy by 3.8.