Council could decrease the tax impact to residents under the 2011 municipal budget, but township staff isn’t sure it’s the best way to go.
Council held a budget workshop last night before its regular Council meeting. Members had asked Township Manager Chris Schultz and CFO Tom Merchel to go back into the budget and look for ways to cut or bring in about $930,000 — the number that would get the budget to a zero tax increase.
Last night, Schultz and Merchel told Council they were able to bring the hole down to about $430,000 through cuts and revenues. Closing the hole all the way, they said, would mean Council would have to consider some of its policies.
For example, Council could choose to use deferred school taxes to present a zero increase budget, which is something Council had done away with last year. They could also increase the Reserve for Uncollected Tax rate as high as last year’s rate of 98.72 percent from its current 9.22 percent rate. Merchel said each tenth of a percent generates about $96,000. Council could also choose to use more surplus to bring taxes down, they said.
For the sake of future budgets that could face shortfalls if some of the policy changes were implemented, Schultz and Merchel did not reccomend that Council alter its policies to present a zero tax increase.
Schultz said the preliminary budget he had presented to Council, which includes a 2.3 cent tax increase over last year was one he thought was “reasonable and prudent.”
Click here, to take a look at the budget message Schultz included with the 2011 preliminary budget
“I’m not in the business of taxing the taxpayer, but I believe we’ve stabilized things and I don’t want to see that stabilization go to the wayside (because we want to keep taxes down),” Schultz said.
The budget discussed last night, would bring the tax rate increase down one-cent from the originally proposed 2.3 cent increase. That would mean a $53 increase in municipal taxes for the average assessed homeowner. The average homeowner in Moorestown would pay about $1,622.75 in municipal taxes if the budget were to go through as discussed yesterday, according to Merchel.
Schultz and Merchel told Council it’s better to have a gradual, year-to-year tax increase as opposed to one year where taxes go up a lot more than others.
“If you continue to keep (taxes) low, it becomes artificial and you get whacked with a huge increase,” Schultz said.
Mayor John Button proposed possibly holding a special meeting to introduce the 2011 budget, rather than waiting until Council’s May 23 meeting to do so.
Once Council introduces the budget, they have to wait at least 28 days for a public hearing and final adoption. With that timeline, Council will most likely have a budget in place by June.
