Eatontown Introduces 2013 Municipal Budget, Taxes Expected To Rise

Eatontown Mayor Gerald Tarantolo said the borough must start making some changes after the introduced municipal budget shows another tax increase for residents

The 2013 budget totals $23,051,024, according to Borough Auditor Robert Oliwa, and is under the cap by $502,093. This represents a $447,830 increase over the 2012 budget.

The amount to be raised by taxation is $15,459,728 and is under the allowable local property tax cap by $4,716. The amount to be raised by local taxes will increase 4.97 percent for a total of $732,305.

The introduced tax rate will be 76.1 cents per $100 of assessed value, an increase of 5.5 cents over the 2012 tax rate of 70.6 cents, Oliwa said.

"Keep in mind, the assessment did go down by 2.64 percent," Oliwa said. "It went down by $55,129,075 so if a residence decreased by the exact (percent) the taxes would go up by approximately 4.97 percent.

"If a resident was assessed at the same amount, and there was no appeal involved, it would be an amount substantially higher than the 4.97 percent tax increase," Oliwa continued.

For a borough home valued at $305,000 in 2013, the taxes will be assessed at $2,321 of local municipal taxes. This represents an increase of $167.75 over the 2012 amount of $2,153.

"If a house was assessed at the average assessment level for 2012 and a house was assessed at the average assessed level in 2013, all things being equal, that house is paying $135.87 more in taxes," Council President Anthony Talerico said.

Oliwa said the borough's ratables have decreased by $603 million since 2006 when the borough's last revaluation was conducted and they totaled $2.6 billion.

The capital budget totals $1,152,215 and includes planned projects for road and building improvements as well as the planned acquisition of vehicles and equipment.

"There are very few things we can control," Councilman Talerico said. "We have some of the lowest wage increases and our employees are understanding of that."

"I don't want people to believe this an appropriation problem its a revenue problem and the revenue from a major source, the courts, is down and the evaluations are down $55 million," he continued.

Mayor Tarantolo said the borough should be looking at selling off assets to increase the borough's surplus.

"I don't see how we can explain this type of an increase without taking some other positive actions to relieve the surplus problem," Tarantolo said.

Tarantolo said the borough's ratable base has "shrunk significantly."

"We've got to start bringing that back and bringing that balance back especially when our commercial component starts to reduce, because then its the residents that start to pick up the burden, and that's not fair," Tarantolo said.

Councilman Talerico said if we had the borough had the same ratable base as it did in 2012, the tax increase would be about half of what it is this year.

There will be a public hearing during the April 24 Eatontown Council meeting to further discuss the budget.