Neighbor News
The Middletown Township Committee's Smokescreen Tax Increases
Middletown Township Committee Deceitful Budgeting
The Middletown Township Committee contradicted an official 2019 budget and denied specific township tax surpluses exist. When confronted during a Committee meeting Monday evening, Mayor Anthony Perry and his committee members denied a documented TOMSA (water/sewage) budget surplus and instead conveniently renamed the surplus “township revenue.”
The Township Committee is moving a greater amount of surplus (tax payer money) each year into the general municipal fund, that is, savings as opposed to yearly revenues to run the Township. This year’s total surplus will amount to $7,150,000 (pg. 4, line 3).
I asked the Committee incumbents a simple question; specifically focusing on a Township of Middletown Sewerage Authority (TOMSA) surplus. TOMSA is transferring a $481,342 (pg. 10, line 7) surplus to the township. Committee members refused to call this a surplus and repeatedly referred to it as revenue. This is not revenue. This is a surplus that belongs to the taxpayers!
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Why not allow residents to keep more money in their pockets instead of paying it to TOMSA and creating a surplus that TOMSA then transfers to the township? Even more disturbing is the fact that Middletown residents will see a $5 per quarter TOMSA (water/ sewer) fee increase despite the existing TOMSA surplus. This fee is a tax increase in disguise.
The TOMSA surplus transfers to the township coupled with the increased TOMSA fees shows that the committee is either lying to create a smokescreen and confuse taxpayers by hiding tax increases or it needs a lesson in simple budgeting. This is, indeed surplus and not revenue! Moving it around and renaming it does not cause it to become township revenue. Spending surplus money as revenue is called deficit spending, which is poor money management and is deceitful to taxpayers.
