The Town Budget for fiscal year 1998 has finally been published. Some of these numbers are a little crazy to me, but that's the way these things work. You can see the budget, as printed in the July 6 edition of the Jersey Journal, here. It's a big GIF of the actual newsprint. By the way, if you want your own copy of the budget, it is available from the Town Clerk only on July 7 at Town Hall from 9:00AM to 4:00PM. I will post the complete municipal budget on this site as soon as I get it.
Here are some interesting facts about this years municipal budget:
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We eliminated 7 employees from the payroll through the water deal, but then added 7 employees to the municipal payroll! Quite a bargain for the taxpayers! |
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With only 7 additional employees, our budget for salaries has been increased by over $1.025 MILLION Dollars! Either these 7 people are making an average of $146,696.42 each, or we've gone through another year of big salary increases. A 2% increase in employees brings us a 10% increase in salaries, while inflation holds steady at 1.5% annually!? Hmmm... |
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Our reserve for uncollected taxes has been increased by $243,000! I guess we're not doing well on actually collecting those taxes. Of course this year's budget expects us to recover more delinquent tax money than last year. I can only suppose that there is actually a plan to accomplish this. |
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We're going to spend $1.3 million on debt servicing. I would consider this a good thing, but we have $1.8 million in interest alone on the books. We're continuing to mortgage our town onto the backs of our children! There's going to be a big expense once the interest compounds and the principal comes due. |
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Projected surplus revenues are down by $350,000! |
I don't know if this is a typo, but according to the printed budget there is $540,000 missing! Look at the version published in the Jersey Journal! It states that the total income is $2,821,100.00 and the total expenses are $2,281,100.00! Can anyone at Town Hall do simple math, or even proof read what we have published in the newspaper?
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We did eliminate 7 positions from the budget through the deal, but see above about the additional municipal employees we added. No savings there! |
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The budget calls for a major reduction in capital improvement money - $614,933.82 to be exact. Do you think any sewer lines will be upgraded or repaired in your neighborhood on that budget? Maybe if you live next door to the right people... |