Matawan Makes Changes to Proposed 2012 Municipal Budget

The Matawan Borough Council approved several changes to the proposed municipal budget for 2012 at their regular action meeting Tuesday night.

"Right after introduction, (the budget) goes to the state for their review and comments," Mayor Paul Buccellato explained. "And on Friday, we were notified that the state had some minor tweaking to do with the budget to comply with new regulations that have been instituted at the state level."

The $10,606,136.50 proposed municipal budget that included the $335,420 library tax in the tax levy, which it should not have, explained Councilman Tom Fitzsimmons, who is head of the finance committee.

The state also told the borough that they have to increase the reserve for uncollected taxes, due to an increase in the amount of tax appeals in the past three years, Fitzsimmons said. The reserve for uncollected taxes increased from $140,000 to $228,148.74.

Those two changes, plus other minor changes, caused a net increase of about $100,000 to the tax levy. The amount to be raised by taxes for the 2012 proposed municipal budget is now $7,412,198.57, which is about $40,000 less than was raised in taxes in 2011.

The tax rate is expected to increase by 3.5 cents now, instead of 3 cents, resulting in a tax rate of 70.9 cents per $100 of assessed home valuation. This means that the owner of an average home in Matawan, valued at about $330,000, would pay an additional $115 a year in municipal taxes.

"Because of tax appeals, the taxable base goes down slightly," Fitzsimmons said. "The value of our taxable property went down by about $9 million."

The 2012 proposed municipal budget as a whole also increased, going from $10,606,136.50 to $10,634,285.24.

"The biggest single increase (from the 2011 municipal budget) is interest payments due to the road program," Fitzsimmons said. "We're not giving people raises, we're making infrastructure improvements."

The borough will hold a public hearing on these changes at their May 15 council meeting. Fitzsimmons will also give a detailed presentation on the proposed 2012 municipal budget at the hearing. The meeting is open to the public and residents are encouraged to attend.