Thursday, September 6, 2007
By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER
RINGWOOD -- The 2007 municipal budget remains a work in progress as the Borough Council remains fragmented over how to ease property taxes.
"I can't believe we're here on Sept. 4 and still doing the budget," Councilwoman Wenke Taule said shortly before midnight on Tuesday, as the Borough Council voted to accept $300,000 in state extraordinary aid, but postponed making any budget cuts to Sept. 18. "It should have been done a long time ago."
Taule and others raised a similar lament last year, when the council's four Democrats and three Republicans sparred over the 2006 spending plan well into September, after getting $500,000 in extra state aid to help reduce the borough's property tax burden. After much debate, the council cut $100,000 from various accounts and applied $20,000 from surplus for additional tax relief.
Furious council members vowed at the time not to repeat that experience. Yet, here they were again.
That left a handful of weary taxpayers in the late-night audience furiously shaking their heads.
Ned Clausen, a council meeting regular, leaped from his seat and dashed to the microphone when the budget public hearing was opened at midnight.
"At the last meeting, you said you'd look at $150,000 in budget cuts," Clausen thundered. "Where are the budget cuts?"
At issue is how much to cut from a proposed $14.5 million spending plan for 2007 that is up just 2.3 percent, but would require an 8.6 percent increase in local taxes because of a decrease in other revenues. For the owner of an average home, assessed at $180,000, that would mean an $128 over last year's $1,591 bill.
In August, a proposal to cut two jobs to save $100,000 was defeated, 4-2. After further debate, the council voted 4-2 to direct Borough Manager Ken Hetrick to find $150,000 in savings on salaries and benefits to apply to next year's budget.
While he's preparing a report on potential staff cuts, Hetrick told the council Tuesday, it should add $102,400 to the budget to cover costs of state-mandated testing for sinkholes in the Upper Ringwood former mining community. State officials, he said, have given no indication when they might provide a grant to cover that expense.
Reluctant council members voted unanimously to add the sinkhole testing item to the budget.
Councilman William Marsala kicked off another debate when he proposed trimming various items totaling $105,000.
The biggest item on his list, $53,000 for recreational field maintenance, hit a sore point with other council members. Marsala, a Republican, has pressed in the past to use open space funds for recreation programs. Democrats on the council have insisted that the open space fund should be used to buy open space.
E-mail: barry@northjersey.com