BRICK – The governing body approved and adopted the $117 million 2024 budget during a recent Township Council meeting. The spending plan only represents the municipal portion of property tax bills and does not include the school board, county, library and fire district taxes.
The amount to be raised by taxes has decreased by about $1 million since the budget was introduced in March, said Mayor Lisa Crate, due to a donation from the Brick Municipal Utilities Authority (MUA).
Because of the donation, the annual tax increase for a median assessed home will be about $73 instead of $98 as proposed in the introduced budget.
Township Chief Financial Officer Maureen Lafferty-Berg and Business Administrator Joanne Bergin were on hand to answer any questions from the public during a hearing on the budget before its adoption.
Resident Vic Finelli asked about the $1 million donation from the Brick MUA. “Has this happened in the past?” Finelli asked. “Can anyone tell me why the MUA would give you a million dollars and not the school district, who has had their budget cut by $25 million in the last seven years?”
Bergin said there is a state statute that allows the MUA to do this for the municipality. “I don’t know that that statute includes boards of education,” she said. “I don’t know the details of it other than that’s the statute that allows us to do that.”
After hearing other complaints from members of the public about the school’s financial problems, township attorney Scott Kenneally said the governing body does not adopt or vote on the school budget, “and that was very clear in the original instructions on why [the council members] are not commenting on the school board budget or county budget – this is not the appropriate forum to discuss those budgets.”
Each of those entities have public hearings on their budgets at which time anyone is free to make a public comment, he said.
The town collects the taxes and acts as a pass-through in doing that, but they can’t comment or impose their opinions on other budgets, the attorney said.
The MUA has donated $1 million to Brick four times over the past ten years, Bergin said – in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 – and only after she made requests.
“I sent a letter as I have many years in the past asking if it was a good opportunity for them to give us a million dollars as it would be helpful to some taxpayers in Brick,” she said. “I received today, via email, a resolution from the MUA commissioners that it was approved.”
Finelli said in his view, the MUA is collecting tax revenue for the township by charging the public for water and sewer “because they have a million dollars to give you quite often, and if that’s not illegal it should be, because you’re getting money for your budget from them on a consistent basis, and that’s wrong.”
Some highlights from the spending plan include $10 million in bond ordinances that will be used to fund road improvement and drainage projects, police vehicles and equipment, sanitation vehicles, recreation improvements, and more.
Also, the budget includes $16 million for debt service, $3.3 in reserve for uncollected taxes and $10.9 million in surplus.
In response to a question from the public, Lafferty-Berg said the tax change rate is up 3.8 percent over the 2023 budget, which had no increase.
The next Council Meeting will be on Tuesday May 14 at 7 p.m.
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