JACKSON – The township has a tentative 2026 municipal budget but it is a work in progress and while it was unveiled during the recent council meeting many questions remain as to what it involves.
Its presentation came with much anticipation by the public and by members of council who expressed concern over the timetable during prior meetings. The administration noted the spending plan features a 0% tax increase and that it not only maintains services but aims to expand them.
According to the township’s website, the 2026 plan will reduce spending and will include additional bulk and recycling pickups, faster effective snow removal, and continued investment in new parks and recreational spaces.
It was noted during the meeting that the township’s police department stands at 120 members, the highest number it has ever had and that Chief Mary Nelson made no major requests for the department for this budget.
The process however isn’t finished and members of the Township Council will be spending about a month examining the plan in full detail. It was noted during the latest meeting where the news on the budget was announced that usually, the introduction of a budget covers the full details of tax rate, tax levy, increases in spending, and many other aspects of how the spending plan was developed.
Business Administrator Charles Terefenko commented on three budget related resolutions stating, “we have a zero-cent increase for 2026 and the tax rate is going to remain the same as it was for 2025 at 0.254. In actuality the percentage increase in the tax rate declined -0.17%. Council has 28 days to review the budget that was put before them.”
Council President Mordechai Burnstein said “there is no council meeting in 28 days. The next council meeting that we will hopefully be adopting a budget, I think is June 9th. I have spoken to the business administrator and all of the council is invited to meet with the CFO (chief financial officer) with any of our financial team and discuss any of their ideas.”
“Hopefully over the next week or two I will have the chance to meet with any of our council members who want to meet and solicit anything that the council wants changed.” He added that it would be “up to the council to come to a consensus and adopt a budget by June 9th.”
Councilman Christopher Pollak voted no to its introduction. “I am not happy with the budget. We are increasing spending by over $3 million which is around a 5.15% increase from last year. The late budget you gave us was paid to be done by a third party. I don’t believe we have ever done that before. You gave us a five-page budget on Thursday and only yesterday at 6:14 p.m. we were given more detailed information.”
Pollak added, “we are increasing use of our surplus and we are depleting all of our town savings to fund this budget and leaning more on less predictable sources of revenue like delinquent taxes, construction fees and miscellaneous revenue. I am happy to keep the taxes flat but I have a serious concern for the future. We are kicking the can down the road here. This is setting up for future tax increases.”
The councilman said $9.4 million was being taken from surplus to fund the budget. “You are basically wiping out the entire surplus we had and leaving us with just over $7,000 left compared to last year where we used less surplus to fund the budget and we still had $4.7 million left over.” He cited increases in various areas adding, “this doesn’t make long-term financial sense to me.”
Council Vice President Giuseppe Palmeri voted yes to its introduction “because that is the responsible thing to do. I understand the increase in spending is to balance inflation. I am happy with the flat tax. I think New Jersey is too expensive as it is and too taxed already. I do look forward to spending more time with our BA (Business Administrator) as well as our finance team and our auditor. I have some additional research I would like to do and some additional questions I want to ask and I’ll be prepared to provide my opinion.”
“If we do make changes in spending, I hope we can keep it flat tax because our Jackson residents are already overtaxed,” he added. “If there is anything we don’t like I have no problem in talking with my colleagues to change it.”
Burnstein also voted yes to the introduction. “It is a tough year financially. Other municipalities in the surrounding areas have raised taxes. We had a historic snowfall season this year. Snow cost the township with private vendors over $3 million. We had a great snow cleanup but it wasn’t free. Previous budgets used to allocate $200,000 for snow removal but instead of saving the money from year to year when there was no snow the money was spent on other things.”
“We came into the snow budget this year with $93,000 left for a $3 million snowfall.” Burnstein added. “If everyone goes through this budget in the next 28 days, they are going to see major, major cuts. I think there will be room for more. We are going to sit down with the auditors…with the financial team and have those conversations with them. Healthcare went up over a million dollars this year. We have a 4% contractual obligation to raise all our union employees every year.”
Councilman Nino Borrelli said, “we are possibly looking at no municipal tax increase or possibly a small decrease of a few bucks here and there, however I am still reading up on it as we just received a kind of user-friendly more detailed longer version last night so at this time I’m going to vote no on it. I need more information.”
“I need more time to digest what was sent to us. I am concerned by the budget going up in spending by 5.16%, a little over $3 million from last year, therefore going way above that 2.5% cap,” he added.
Borrelli said, “I know budgets go up but it seems like it is a lot. Maybe we can look at making more cuts to get spending down.” He added that he was also concerned about “using our healthy surplus that our town has to balance the budget.”
“I’m going to vote yes on this because it is just the introduction,” Councilman Ken Bressi said. He noted that he would have liked to have seen a PowerPoint presentation as was the norm in years past that would detail the spending plan.
Burnstein promised that such a presentation would be included at the June 9th council meeting.
“We have 28 days to sit down with the CFO, the administrator and review everything line by line which I plan on doing,” Bressi added.
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