It's budget time again! Every year, we have a transparent process where we open up our finances for the public, and go through line by line all the costs in our budget. You can see it all by looking at the meeting documents here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilmeetings.
We reviewed the top line numbers this session for many departments, but not the big cost drivers (police, public works). Those conversations will happen at our next meeting on Monday, March 3rd. I encourage you to attend!
Highlights:
Our municipal tax levy is going up 2.88% for a total of $18.3 million. This does not include the library.
Taxes to support the library are set by the State. When they are included, the tax levy is going up 3.2% for a total of $19.4 million. This is the highest increase in the last six years.
Operating expenses (excluding grants) are only going up 2.03% to $28.8 million, which is the lowest increases in the last six years. Increases to operating expenses are due to garbage and recycling costs, medical costs (14% increase), and salary wage increases (mostly for the new police contract cost increases), and police pension increases.
Revenue decreased by 3%, mainly due to the loss of the American Rescue Plan money we were using to offset Covid related revenue loss ($705K).
As part of the presentation, we went deep into many department budgets. The most robust presentation was the Library's (about 30 minutes into the meeting). They are receiving more state aid this year to run the library, so for the second year in a row no additional taxpayer funds are required to supplement their budget. The Library has hit all of their strategic goals in recent years in terms of circulation and program attendance.
We also went through a comprehensive list of capital improvement projects. In the last three years, our Township Manager (first Mr. D'Arco and now Mr. O'Sullivan) have done a better job working with each Department head to clearly identify mission critical projects and get them in front of the Council. We have a lot of aging infrastructure, and years of inaction has created a backlog of projects. To put it another way, we have a long and expensive list of things to do.
Highlights of projects mentioned include digitizing records, a facilities audit, municipal building improvements, replacing the Franklin Street bridge, stabilizing the Peckman River at Bloomfield Avenue, designing municipal parking lot renovations, critical IT upgrades, and open space planning.
As this was part one of a two part conversation, I will reserve and commentary till after we get through the second half.
The rest of the meeting was very standard. We passed our increases to pool rates and fees, and set salaries for the seasonal staff. The Administration and staff have clear priorities for this pool season for marketing and programming to boost membership. I am excited for another pool season. We also passed an ordinance to clarify fees related to stormwater management.
Under resolutions, we certified our LOSAP for 2024 for the volunteer fire department, and awarded a contract for landscaping and maintenance. We also passed a resolution to support legislation to allow us to post official legal notices on our website (instead of a newspaper). The state legislature is considering allowing municipalites to make these changes.
In new business, we discussed a joint meeting with the Board of Education, which will occur on Tuesday March 25th.
If you have any feedback for the Council, I encourage you to write to all five us us using this convenient form here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.