After Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh delivered his annual State of the Township address on Monday, March 12, several residents urged Council to ease the tax burden, and one even brought along some tools to help with the process. Pete Weale of Fisher Place took two saws to the podium to demonstrate how serious he was about cutting the proposed budget.
Although the display made several attendees and council members laugh, Council President Kamal Khanna gently asked Weale not to cut the podium itself. Weale held his saws up but he was more focused on asserting that heavy costs lie ahead for construction at the municipal complex (WW-P News, March 2).
“I know what I can do — I can take one of the loaders from the Department of Public Works, hook it on to that trailer (at the municipal complex), and in about 10 minutes I can do all the demolition work that’s necessary,” Weale said.
Debbie Hepler of 10 Dean Court questioned the $612,000 cost of the Wallace Road sewer line repair work that was completed in late February. Hepler also called a letter to the editor written by Director of Community Development Pat Ward (WW-P News, March 2) “just a big list of excuses.”
“When are the elected officials in this town going to be held accountable to the taxpayers? I’ve seen the big numbers but I want to see the full report on where our tax dollars are spent. Every penny of this $600,000-plus repair should be accounted for and shown to the public. We have a right to this information,” she said.
Hepler said that from her inquiries the only amounts that the public heard about were the replacement pipe lining and a small amount of paving work. She continued to question the financial management of the township, criticizing the proposed use of $2 million in liquor license fees for renovations of the municipal complex.
“I think this administration, like Washington, is seriously addicted to spending other people’s money,” Hepler said.
Gary Zohn of Hawthorne Drive, who ran for Council last November along with Councilman Bryan Maher, had a proposal for the two million dollars.
“I think the township should spend $25,000 to $50,000 to get some professional planning for the job to get a better estimate and see if the work can be done for closer to $1 million, and then take the other million to put towards taxes so you can take some weight off taxpayers’ backs,” Zohn said.
John Church of 11 Princeton Place said he’s done a deep analysis of the proposed budget for this year as well as previous years. He asked Council about the fund balance maintained by West Windsor, which he says has fluctuated from $3 million to $8 million but averages about $7.2 million each year.
“Why is $7.2 million a magic number? I would like to see a justification of why we need that much in the fund balance — is it really necessary to get lower interest rates of maintain our triple A bond rating?” Church asked.
But Church’s questions led right into Township CFO Joanne Louth’s presentation on township revenues, in which she detailed the procedure of managing the township’s finances, which include a fund balance for this year and last of $4.435 million.
“Basically 12 percent of the budget is paid for by fund balance. Of the $37,327,000 budget one of the revenues used to support that amount is the fund balance — the amount of cash that’s basically on hand at any given time, and it’s used to pay bills,” she said.
Louth said that once the money in the fund balance is used it needs to be replaced. “If you are going to use 12 percent of the budget funded by fund balance you need to have your expenses come in under what you’re budgeting because that goes back into fund balance,” she said.
Louth explained that West Windsor Township is a collection agency for 100 percent of property tax, but only 15 percent of property taxes fund municipal services. However, the township is required to pay 100 percent to the school system and 100 percent to the county for local services.
“If the township does not collect all of the tax it has to provide a reserve for those uncollected taxes,” she said.
Louth says that West Windsor’s tax office has done a banner job, collecting 99 percent of revenues. Louth stated that with this year’s proposed budget coming in under the two percent cap — at 1.86 percent over last year’s tax levy — the township is basically suggesting a $409,756 increase over last year.
Louth noted some gains for West Windsor. Some revenues exceeded last year’s totals, including third-party ambulatory services, a new revenue for West Windsor in 2011. Louth said $98,000 was the anticipated revenue while the actual was $152,000. Cable franchise fees also resulted in an increase in revenue last year, bringing the township $125,355.21.
Energy tax receipts from the state remained flat with the same amounts for the last two years with $2.19 million. Energy tax receipts from the state decreased each of the last three years and have seen a decline of $1 million since 2006.
The township has budgeted for $5.15 million in miscellaneous revenue. Sewer service charges result in $3.125 million in revenue for 2012. Meanwhile municipal fees, licenses and permits all remained constant.
Touching on the progress outlined by Pat Ward (see page 15) Louth said that one of the reasons West Windsor’s fund balance was higher was because 2011 was a great year for the township’s construction and code enforcement. Seven projects came in, and the permit fees from them totaled over $1 million. But the negative is the reality that it’s not a constant sum.
“One of the things I’ve learned through the process of achieving a triple A bond rating is that the ratings agency looks at long-term revenue. In order to preserve the rating, we cannot depend on revenues that will dissipate over time,” she said.
The township is facing a net loss in revenue of $422,756. One of the big reductions in township revenue was interest on investments.
“We just don’t have the fund balance that we used to and the interest rates are next to nothing compared to where they were before. We used a fund balance for the past two years of $4.435 million. That number has not grown,” she said.
Interest on deposits is $125,000 less this year than last year. The Sewer Assessment Trust Fund also declined in revenue by $100,000 and the reserve for Recreation/Open Space referendum was $73,658 less than a year ago.
