As one who has been following West Windsor’s municipal budgeting process for several years, I would like to comment on some of the statements made in another publication about our introduced budget, which is up for adoption in early May.
First, there is a misapprehension as to the actual nature of the fund balance. Boiled down to simplest terms, it’s a town’s checking account corrected for current receivables and liabilities at one particular moment in time. Just as our own personal checking accounts fluctuate on a day-to-day basis as income comes in and bills are paid, so does the town’s.
It was misleading for the mayor to state that West Windsor’s fund balance reserve decreased to $1.5 million just because council is committing to gradually using $4.8 million of it (out of a beginning balance of $6.4 million) over the course of a full year, figures rounded. This would be like an individual saying that just because he or she would have $20,000 in expenses over a year out of a beginning bank balance of $30,000 (with a predictable offsetting income stream), that their reserve is only $10,000.
As shown by decades of history, West Windsor has a reliable income from sources other than property tax receipts. In its zeal to maintain an unreasonably high level of fund balance, this income stream is constantly being minimized by the administration. As an example, in 2014 we realized almost $1.5 million in building permits as opposed to the administration’s suggestion that we should have expected only $775,000. This kind of error goes on year after year.
In contrast to the mayor’s exaggerated fears, West Windsor has so many things going for it that there is essentially no chance that its AAA bond rating will decline. We have excellent schools, convenient transit access to New York and Philadelphia, a well-educated population, and almost 100 percent of our billed taxes are received every year. Even in the highly unlikely event that our bond rating went down to AA, the effect would be small, perhaps an increase of 0.1 percent in our interest rates. It was absurd for the mayor to even hint that “someday the cash in the bank will be all used up.” No council would ever permit this to come even close to happening.
John A. Church
West Windsor
