Verona Council Approves Final Revised 2012 Budget

After much debate that continued into Tuesday night's council meeting, Verona Borough Council passed a revised 2012 budget—it maintains the property tax rate—and approved a smaller-than-expected raise for the borough manager.

Council voted 5-2, with opposition from Rhoda Gemellas-Worf and Sandy Drabiki-Bell, to approve the $1.2 million budget proposed at the workshop meeting in late January. Officials unanimously approved maintaining the current millage rate of 8.0 mils for 2012, meaning a resident pays $800 for every $100,000 of assessed property value.

In January, the borough reopened the budget for discussion, resulting in debate over accounting numbers and salary proposals.

Tuesday night’s vote came after council quickly discussed and almost passed a budget different than the one that was publicized to residents this month. One of the scrutinized line items in the budget was Borough Manager Bonnie Conway’s proposed 2012 salary.

Based on that budget, Conway was expected to earn $32,440, a more-than $5,000 increase compared to 2011.

However on Tuesday, some council members wanted to instead propose a smaller pay raise of $30,433.76, which would be a rough 12 percent increase from the year prior.

Despite the budget changing to decrease expenses, the borough can't approve a budget that has not first been advertised to residents for 10 days, according to borough Solicitor Craig Alexander.

To make things more difficult, the borough had to approve a budget by Feb. 15, therefore, there was not enough time to draft and advertise another budget that would reflect the borough manager’s newly proposed salary increase.

With that in mind, officials approved the budget that was made public to residents, and then unanimously approved the reduced salary raise for Conway in order to make the necessary adjustment.

Councilman Pat McCarthy said an outdated computer and software used by the borough are partly to blame for unreliable accounting and budgeting information.

He said officials have been talking with two companies to look into revamping the computer equipment and software. One bid has already been proposed at $12,000.