Westfield 2023 Budget To Be Presented At March Meeting

WESTFIELD, NJ — Westfield taxpayers will have to wait a little longer to see the latest municipal budget, including any tax increases this year.

The 2023 Westfield municipal budget will be introduced at the March 28 town council meeting, according to a town notice. A budget presentation will also take place at the meeting.

Last year’s $49 million municipal budget included a slight 1.98 percent tax increase for residents, prompting the average household to pay an additional $4 per month, or about $48 per year, Patch previously reported.

Westfield’s annual budget presentation typically includes a plethora of useful information for informed Westfield taxpayers, including revenue, surplus, required/statutory expenditures, town salaries, state aid, capital improvement funds and a comprehensive breakdown of where local tax dollars go.

Parking and court revenues were most negatively impacted for Westfield in 2022, with statutory or required expenditures for costs like health insurance, pensions, social security, utilities and the Rahway Valley Sewage Authority also going up by a cool $900,000 last year, Business Administrator Jim Gildea previously told Patch.

"2022 was a tough year, this budget year," Gildea said. "We had a lot of expenditures come our way that we couldn't really control, which is very common."

You can view the full budget from last year here.

A municipal public budget forum was held in January, with 2023 budget goals set to prioritize downtown economic recovery and public infrastructure such as roads, parks, recreation and the arts. Other goals included “aggressively” looking for new recurring revenue streams, diversifying the tax base through redevelopment and soliciting public input to establish additional 2023 priorities.

Challenges posed in 2023 so far include non-discretionary expenses over $600,000 such as pensions, insurance, debt service and reserve funds for uncollected taxes. The presentation also noted increased costs of residential services for public safety, curbside leaf collection and recycling, as well as utility and sewer fee cost increases.

An “ambitious” capital plan was also touted at the meeting, with plans for improvements in township recreation/parks, public safety, technology, drainage and road paving.

“2023 will remain fiscally challenging, but we are in a good position to continue our local recovery and continue with projects and initiatives,” a slide from the January budget forum presentation read. “The last few years have revealed our significant risk of our over-reliance on residential property taxes and limited discretionary funding sources, reiterating the urgent need to expand and diversify our tax base to mitigate against future emergencies and uncertainty.”

You can view the January public budget forum here: