Berkeley Heights Mayor Listened to Our Request, 0% Increase

After weeks of asking the Township Council to reconvene to revisit the proposed 3.1% municipal tax increase, they complied and arranged a public budget meeting last night. It wasn’t really a normal budget meeting but a special meeting to announce the Mayor’s new revised version of the budget to the Council and public. The new budget cuts back to a 0% tax increase rather than their originally proposed 3.1% tax increase.

None of the Department heads presented last night and there was not a chance to go line by line through the budget to discuss deeper cuts. However, this is still a significant improvement from their business as usual tax increases.

This new Budget will be presented to the Township Council in the upcoming meeting with a final vote to approve in the one following.

I wholeheartedly believe The Mayor, Administrator and the CFO could have gone farther and provided a 5% decrease in municipal taxes. But I am thankful that they listened to us, the local businesses and other taxpayers in Berkeley Heights and took heed of our letter and petition and at least moved in the right direction.

The Mayor still suggested $2,000,000 in new debt. Much of this is for Road repair, which I do believe is a good investment and glad to see that most of the “nice to haves” were removed from the capital budget.

This change in the budget clearly proves that the Administration could do this every year if they wanted to. Their claim that they only have a small sliver to work with is nonsense. Here when they wanted to they were able to reduce 3.1% off of their initial budget and could have done significantly more.

The municipal part is only one part of the Berkeley Heights business community and residents Tax Story. A bigger part comes from the Berkeley Heights Board of Education. The Board of Education is regulated by a 2% / year cap. Under normal circumstances they max out spending under that cap. If they want to go over the 2% cap for Capital Spending they need to ask the residents if they can do so by putting the request on the ballot. This year they do want to spend above and beyond the maximum and are asking the residents to sign off on roughly $4,000,000 of new capital spending.

This new financial request is for re-doing the school libraries. They are marketing it differently but this is what it is for. It is clearly something that can wait for at least one year, until long term financial circumstances are more certain. I find it inappropriate to ask for so much money when many businesses and residents in town are struggling. They have a significant amount of debt rolling off this year, this debt should be used to provide tax relief to the Businesses and Residents of Berkeley Heights. This large spend can be revisited in next years budget.

Overall Kudos to the Mayor, Administrator and CFO for working hard to present the new budget rather than the one with the 3.1% tax increase.