West Windsor Council is expected to introduce a municipal budget on Monday May 22, that calls for a slight increase in municipal taxes.
The budget, as initially proposed to council by administration last month, was a $31.39 million spending plan — an 8.06 percent increase over the $29.05 million 2005 budget. The introduced budget is expected to be lower as a result of spending cuts implemented by council and administration.
According to Business Administrator Chris Marion, the budget calls for a municipal tax rate of 27 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, up 2 cents from the converted 2005 rate of 25 cents. A conversion from last year is necessary because of the township’s recently-completed property valuation. Last year’s actual rate was 59 cents.
The overall tax rate — including municipal, WW-P School District, Mercer County, library, and open space taxes — will be $1.92 or $1.91 per $100 of assessed valuation, depending on the municipal budget cuts. Last year’s rate was $4.26.
At $1.91, the owner of a home assessed at the township average of $575,200 would pay $10,986 for all property taxes this year. At last year’s tax rate, a home assessed at the 2005 township average of $239,500 would have paid a total of $10,203 in property taxes.
The municipal portion of the bill would be $1,553 for the home assessed at the township average this year under the proposed budget, as opposed to $1,413 for a home assessed at the township average value of $239,500 in 2005.
According to Marion, major spending increases this year include $680,454 more for salaries and wages; $367,809 for deferred charges to fund capital items not bonded; $182,509 for debt service; $267,664 for pensions; $143,000 for trash collection; $127,000 for group insurance.
Also, $93,120 to the Stony Brook Regional Sewerage Authority; $75,000 in the reserve for uncollected taxes; $75,000 for gas; $45,896 for social security, $50,000 for capital improvement downpayments; $30,000 for street lighting; $25,773 for worker compensation; and $25,000 for electricity.
Marion says major areas of concern during council’s budget review were in overtime and the addition of new positions.
According to Chief Financial Officer Joanne Louth administration has cut $50,000 from the salary and wage, and overtime accounts in order to help limit the tax increase to 2 cents.
The amount of retained surplus this year is about $2.3 million — 7.4 percent of the overall budget. According to Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, the number is up from last year’s 5 percent in anticipation of tax appeals resulting from the revaluation. The 5 percent figure is recommended by Moody’s Investor Service in order to retain a favorable bond rating.
“Some people might suggest that the fund balance be used to support bringing taxes down, but we expect there will be a lot of appeals from the revaluation. We want to make sure there is enough surplus available in case too many appeals are approved,” Hsueh says.
The mayor has instituted a review of the township’s open space tax, which was temporarily reduced from 7 cents to 5 cents this year in anticipation of the reduction in tax rate. “Now that the revaluation data is in, it shows that we need to bring down the rate a little bit more” in order to keep the tax at the same level before the revaluation.
