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Budget ‘heavily influenced’ by reductions in aid from the state
(by Karl de Vries/Correspondent - May 07, 2008)
Mountain Lakes’ borough council approved its 2008 fiscal year budget Monday, highlighted by increases in the municipality’s pension and infrastructure allocations.
The budget, retroactive to Jan. 1 of this year, was prepared by Borough Manager Joe Tempesta and was heavily influenced by reductions to local aid from the state.
As Trenton tightens the state’s overall budget, less money is available for local pension programs, such as the Police and Fire Retirement System (PFRS) and the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS). For the past five years, the state has leaned on smaller municipalities with populations under 5,000 (such as Mountain Lakes) to fund these programs.
So to compete with a slowing economy and higher numbers of retirees, the borough has been forced to adopt a 20 percent increase of its allocation for pension programs year to year. Initially adopted as a temporary resolution while the state’s finances are stabilized, Tempesta does not foresee an alleviation of these responsibilities in the near The state has also implemented a restriction of a maximum four percent tax increase on all of New Jersey’s municipalities this year; Mountain Lakes, therefore, has had to work within these boundaries to satisfy the needs of its community employees and other considerations. In 2008, borough residents will face an average increase of $262 in the municipal portion of their taxes.
A solution that’s being adopted by smaller municipalities such as Mountain Lakes is to pool resources with neighboring communities. This includes the sharing of equipment and evaluating potential consolidations of personnel. One such response has been the recent outsourcing of police and fire dispatch systems to Morris County, which Tempesta claims has saved the community between $50,000 and $60,000.
Looking ahead to next year, Tempesta told the Mountain Lakes borough council that he plans to “fine tune” the 2009 budget along these lines, following the lead of a state that promises no immediate relief from cutbacks to local municipal funding. Congratulating Tempesta on his report, Councilman Stephen Shaw recognized the difficulty of working within such limitations.
“It [the budget] was relatively painless,” he joked.
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