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Kelly Says Tax Hike Is About Being Right, Not Being Popular
By Catherine Snipe
The proposed township budget released this week by Mayor Dan Kelly tops $71 million, up 5.74 percent from last year, and calls for a 12-cent increase to the municipal tax rate.
At $71.636 million, the proposed budget is $3.89 million more than last year. The 12-cent increase hikes the tax rate by more than 13 percent, creating a tax rate of 97.3 cents per $100 of assessed property value.
The proposed tax rate is needed to keep the programs Brick residents enjoy, Kelly said.
"It provides the services and programs that the good
people of this community
so richly deserve," he said, "and it pays for them."
The mayor said the budget process is new to him, and he came to the table with the financial team asking for a zero percent increase. But he quickly learned that was not possible, and worked instead on creating a tax rate that, "addresses the realities of this government's spending habits."
"It became clear to me that we could no longer continue on the path we have been on for the past 13 years," Kelly said.
For those 13 years, prior Mayor Joseph Scarpelli created new programs, but also kept the tax rate low or suggested no increase.
Kelly said that the budget is helped by new cost-saving measures in place, such as: the township encouraging more departments to use flex-time to better manage the hours they work, instead of dipping into overtime; looking to save money through shared service agreements with neighboring towns and the Brick School District; and having the township use its existing personnel to fill in for recently retired staff, while looking to decrease the workforce by not replacing retiring employees.
However, the proposed budget asks for several increases.
Debt service and police salaries are increasing by almost $1 million each. Pension bills will cost $890,000 more, and insurance, utilities landfill and other salary costs add more than a combined $1 million to the budget.
The township's debt was $103 million last year, and debt service hopes to lower that to $90 million this year. A little over a decade ago, the net debt stood at a mere $30 million, according to Kelly, who said the rising debt combined with increased spending, is putting Brick in bad financial shape.
"Spending what you don't have is not
the way to do business," the mayor said. "I also know that when you are in a hole,
you have to stop digging. This budget stops the digging."
The 12-cent increase in taxes is a way to right the wrongs of previous budgets the township approved in prior administrations, said Kelly.
"The decision to have a 12-cent tax increase was not an easy decision," Kelly said. "While spending has increased, growth in the tax levy has not kept pace."
He said the township is suffering when it tries to keep the tax rate low through the use of its surplus and one-shot revenues such as selling liquor licenses or township property.
The mayor's budget would add $192 to the annual tax bill of a house assessed at $133,500, translating into a $16 monthly increase for taxpayers with a home of that same value. However, Councilwoman Ruthanne Scaturro said few houses in Brick are assessed in that range, with most reaching higher prices and creating more of a tax burden to those taxpayers.
For a house valued at $200,000, annual taxes would increase to $1,946.
Kelly said he is painfully aware of how unpopular a 12-cent increase is. "I am not as concerned with doing the popular thing as I am in doing the right thing," he said.
Proposing such an increase became necessary because spending continues to grow in Brick, said Kelly, explaining that most of that spending is beyond the township's control, in the form of contractual salary increases, or is a legislated change.
Kelly called this "non-discretionary" spending, with the discretionary items, those the township had a choice to spend money on, are in the minority.
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