Council Adopts $56.6 Million Budget

The Borough Council adopted a $56.6 million budget for 2011 at their public meeting Tuesday.

The budget would collect about $12,000 less in taxes than the previous revenue plan and is $2.2 million below a state-imposed cap on tax increases. The budget also and two part-time employees, and demoted three others.

Councilman Alan Brundage was chairman of the committee responsible for crafting the budget. While he was pleased taxes wouldn't go up, he said the layoffs were difficult.

"I'm not so thrilled with some of the decisions that had to be made here," he said.

Mayor Richard LaBarbiera, a Democrat, said he and the unions representing Borough workers proposed  a tax increase that would average $13 per household that would have saved some of the positions. That idea was rejected by the all-Republican Council.

"It's a strong difference of opinions," said LaBarbiera, whose only voting power as mayor is to break ties. "I had hoped that we could endure a $13 increase on the average home."

Brundage said he agreed with the sentiment of saving the workers, but couldn't stomach the proposal philosophically, especially after promising a budget with no tax increase.

"In my mind, no tax increase is a good tax increase," he said.

The 2011 budget is the first Paramus spending plan without an increase in the amount of taxes raised since the 1990s, a feat Brundage hopes to repeat next year, when a $6 million pension payment comes due.