East Windsor Considers Tax Increase

The East Windsor Township Council is planning to propose a budget in March that is tentatively expected to include a tax increase, according to Mayor Janice Mironov.

Under the tentative budget numbers, the township would raise its overall budget two percent up from last year, to $20,237,336, she said. That would lead to a tax increase of 2.49 cents per $100 of assessed home value, or $66 for the owner of a house valued at the township average of $264,000. If these numbers become finalized and pass, the tax rate for 2011 would become 40.79 cents and the average homeowner would pay $1,077 overall in municipal property taxes.

While that would be an increase, Mayor Mironov noted the tentative budget falls more than $2.8 million below state appropriation limits and $345,000 under the state-mandated two-percent cap on property tax increases.

“People seem to be having a lot of trouble with the levy cap; we're $345,000 under that,” she said.

“Obviously, we'd like to have no increase,” Mayor Mironov added, but she said some factors have made a hike necessary. Pension payments are up $530,000 this year and now make up almost a tenth of the budget, while the township’s ratable base is down $14 million, or about one-half of one percent.

“We're hopeful that it's a blip this year, and that conditions generally will improve and that our base will continue to grow in valuation,” she said.

Surplus funds are also down considerably in recent years. They’re projected at $2,632,000 for 2011, but in 2008 the township had $6,190,000 in surplus.

“In general, the challenge of the budget is that we're revenue-stressed,” the mayor said. “Money that the state withheld from us last year continues to reverberate; you never quite get that money back, and that means surplus isn't regenerating to a degree. We've had significant loss in most all of our revenue categories in the last couple of years… and the state skimming off our municipal funds to balance their budget has also had a dramatic impact.”

State aid figures for 2011 were released Wednesday and, , East Windsor’s aid remains flat, at $3,517,385. But Mayor Mironov said that won’t make up for huge losses in earlier years.

“To the degree that [state aid] will remain level in that there are not additional cuts, it's a relief,” she said. “However, that doesn't erase the fact that $900,000 was withheld from East Windsor in 2010 which has not been restored and is blowing a hole in our revenue and being withheld from local property taxpayers in order to plug the state budget.”