Township prepares spending plan

[Cranbury Press]

Township prepares spending plan
Thursday, January 22, 2009 3:23 PM EST
By Maria Prato-Gaines, Staff Writer




CRANBURY — It’s almost that time for the Township Committee.

Committee members are already working on the upcoming 2009 municipal budget, and township officials say they’re working to keep the municipal tax rate stable by combing over spending line by line.

Last year, the township introduced a $21.4 million budget and the municipal tax rate was increased from 35 cents per $100 of assessed valuation to 37.2 cents.

Under that rate, the owner of a home assessed at the township average of $668,923 paid about $2,488 in municipal taxes, up just under $147.

The township has already had several meetings to discuss the operating budget and will soon be discussing capital improvements, said Christine Smeltzer, township administrator.
”They are looking at every little thing,” she said. “It’s a very tedious kind of process.”

Concerning the operational budget, the committee is looking into several ways to save the taxpayers money, including freezing the Township Committee’s salaries for the next three years as well as staying conservative with supplies in the offices and finding ways to go paperless by communicating through e-mail or on the Internet, said Mayor Pari Stave at a Jan. 12 Township Committee meeting.

”These are smaller items,” she said. “But we have to look at the bigger ticket items too.”

Township officials have another budget meeting scheduled for Jan. 31 at 9 a.m. and have invited the public to either come and offer input or just sit-in to see how the process works.

”As long as something is being communicated to us it can certainly be considered,” Ms. Smeltzer said of public suggestions. “The public can certainly, and certainly has, been important in talks throughout this process.”

Although the township is preparing to have the budget approved and adopted by the March deadline, officials are expecting the state to grant a six-week extension, much like it did last year, while state aid figures are calculated.

”If the state doesn’t provide us with the numbers to finance our budget, then they grant an extension of time,” Ms. Smeltzer said.

http://www.centraljersey.com/articles/2009/01/22/cranbury_press/news/doc4978d583c3ede367352147.txt

[Guest]

[Guest]

One concern that needs to be examined carefully is the budget for professional services. It seems whenever billable hours are to an outside professional are involved, budgets will grow.

[Jay T.]

The next budget meeting is on Saturday the 31st at 9am. I attended the last meeting and found as a resident the discussion to be very good and informative. Yes, discussing items on a line by line basis can be boring, but it gives one a solid perspective on where the money goes and what is being spent.

I'd encourage everyone to attend who can. They certainly seemed open to comment and thankful that people showed an interest.