The West Windsor Township Council voted 4-1 to send a resolution asking state legislators to restore the Energy Tax Receipts Property Tax Relief program, which was cut by the state for 2010.
The cuts resulted in a $619,620 decrease in state aid to the township, and the township wants it to be restored.
According to the resolution, adopted April 6, the program descended from the Public Utility Gross Receipts and Franchise Tax, which was a tax on regulated public utilities originally assessed and collected at the municipal level. In the early 1980s, the state became the collection agent for this assessment, and the law that created the change promised that the proceeds would be distributed back to the municipalities which provide services to utility facilities and are the source of the utility profits.
“At one point, the utility companies joined to convince the state that it was too much work for them to pay 566 municipalities,” West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh explained. “So they paid one shot to the state, and the state distributed that” to municipalities.
“This portion is 100 percent supposed to come to municipalities,” Hsueh added. “We are supposed to get all of this money.”
Upon reform of utility taxes in the 1990s, a new law was passed requiring the Energy Tax distributions to be annually increased by the rate of inflation. In order for the state to increase Energy Tax distributions by the rate of inflation for five straight years without providing municipalities with one new dollar in property tax relief, state officials reduced the CPMTRA distribution by the same amount that it increased the Energy Tax distribution.
Therefore, in 2008, the increase of Energy Tax Receipts of $135,983 was offset by a decrease of CPMTRA aid by $139,149, decreasing the total state aid to the township by $237,824 — which resulted in the township receiving $2.9 million.
Then, in 2009, the increase in Energy Tax Receipts of $10,894 was offset by the elimination of CMPTRA aid of $127,851 — which resulted in a decrease of total state aid by $116,957 to $2.8 million. Now, in 2010, the governor is proposing to withhold the municipal Energy Tax Receipts of $616,922, resulting in a total reduction to West Windsor of $619,620, the resolution stated.
Lower Speed Limit? In other business during the April 6 meeting, council approved a resolution that requests the county to lower speed limits on the curvy section of Cranbury Road.
According to the resolution, the township engineer, police, and Mercer County traffic engineer have reviewed the section of Cranbury Road because of a large number of accidents there.
As a result, the county engineer has recommended the speed limits be lowered. From the county line of Middlesex County along Cranbury Road to Perry Court, the speed limit is proposed to be 40 miles per hour. Then, it is proposed to be 30 miles per hour from Perry Court to the point approximately 350 feet east of Steele Drive, where the current limit is 25.
