Township Approves 2011 Municipal Budget

With no public comment The Wyckoff Township Committee unanimously adopted the amended $17,071,809 municipal budget Tuesday night which will raise property taxes by an average of $65.24 on the average assessed home of $810,600.

No residents turned out to speak at the meeting although one letter by Jim Savage was submitted into the record. In voicing his support Mayor Kevin Rooney said the budget "came in essentially flat if you take into account the State mandated costs over which we have no control."

The primary increases, said committee members, are for “uncontrollable” State mandated costs such as a 16 percent increase in police pensions, a 23 percent increase for public employee pensions and a 7.5 percent increase for employee health care costs. Over 90 percent of the total budget increase is a result of mandated costs.

In preparing the budget the township committee made note that State aid for 2011 will be unchanged from 2010, but the level of 2010 aid was dramatically cut by the State. “In 2010 the Township suffered the largest single percentage decrease in State collected municipal taxes of any of Bergen County’s 70 municipalities; 25.5 percent, or $373,363… and a total cut in State aid of $594,911 since 2006,” Township Administrator Bob Shannon wrote in a release announcing the budget.

Key among those costs he said were $124,450 in contractual police salary increases, and $99,480 in employee health care. Those two line items alone represent 58 percent of the total budget increase.