It’s back to the drawing board for West Windsor’s administration after the Township Council rejected the scenarios it provided to potentially reduce its original 2011 budget by 5 percent.
Council members, however, were still concerned with the estimated tax increase for property owners, who on average, will see an increase of $108 this year.
During the March 14 meeting, the administration presented a list of scenarios, including cutting the township’s garbage collection service and cuts to the township’s senior center, arts council, and environmental commission.
“None of the items were considered because no one was in favor of taking away any of those,” said Council President Kamal Khanna.
Business Administrator Robert Hary echoed the sentiment. “Although we didn’t agree that any reduction was appropriate, we did give them various areas where we could get reduction,” he said. “We first honed in on areas that were non-public safety and non-contractual.”
Instead, the council asked the administration to come up with some “fine tuning” cuts to areas like overtime and see where it can streamline other departments, like Public Works, and report back to the council for continued budget discussions on Monday, March 21.
With regard to overtime, Hary said the administration “already reduced it considerably last year, and the budget has even less overtime for this year,” but the administration would continue to look at potential savings.
In the area of Public Works, Hary said officials would examine whether it could reduce costs if the township supplanted its full-time staff with per diem employees.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh presented his $37.4 million municipal budget for 2011 to the council late last month. The budget calls for the lowest increase in 17 years — only $358,000, or less than 1 percent, over last year.
Despite the 0.97 percent increase, the township will be burdened with a large increase in state-mandated pension contributions and a loss of more than half a million dollars in revenue — translating into a 5.3 percent increase for taxpayers through the municipal tax levy.
The tax levy, however, still falls within the 2 percent cap the state has mandated for all municipalities and school boards because of the exceptions provided by the state, West Windsor officials said.
The tax rate will increase, however, by 2.5 cents, from 34.5 cents per $100 of assessed value to 37 cents — an increase of 7.39 percent, according to budgetary figures presented to council during the March 14 meeting.
This means that the owner of a home assessed at the township average of $527,376 (a decrease from last year’s average assessment of $534,782) would pay $1,951.56 this year. The budget handout showed that last year’s average tax bill under the old assessment was $1,842.77. So, the average tax bill has increased by $108.80 — a 5.9 percent increase.
Upon initial review on February 28, the council asked the administration to provide a scenario in which the budget was reduced by five percent, which resulted in the scenarios proposed at the March 14 meeting.
Council was reluctant to give up its garbage collection services for residents. “The residents would have to pay on their own,” said Khanna. “When the residents pay on their own, it’s much more than when we charge.”
Khanna said he is hopeful that the council can introduce the budget within the next two weeks.
According to the budget figures and memo Hsueh sent to Council last month, $22,089,531 will be raised through taxation this year, an increase of $1.1 million, or 5.3 percent, over the 2010 tax levy, which was $20,978,377.
In the area of expenditures, the administration cut $583,763 from the amount requested by department heads within the township for a final total of $37,405,000. “As a result, total expenditures for 2011 increased only $358,000 from last year’s total of $37,047,000,” Hsueh wrote.
When it comes to revenues, the township lost $753,154 in total revenue for 2011 — from $16 million in 2010 to $15.3 million this year.
