Politics & Government

Fanwood Council Calls 2010 Budget 'Something to Be Proud Of'

The budget includes a 3.6 percent tax increase over last year.

The Fanwood Borough Council adopted the 2010 municipal budget in a special meeting Monday night, after all the council members reiterated how pleased they were with the end result.

"We put a lot into it, got a lot of input, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out," Councilman Anthony Parenti said of the budget that includes an average $78 tax increase to residents, 3.6 percent higher than last year.

Mayor Colleen Mahr continued to emphasize how the nearly $200,000 in state aid loss hurt the budget, but noted that the borough took a number of steps to keep the impact to residents at a minimum, including small workforce reductions, no salary increases for employees, the planned joint dispatching with the county, and the change from Blue Cross Blue Shield to the state health plan.

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"I believe that we don't necessarily have a spending problem," Mahr said. "I think it comes down to a revenue problem, which is a little different than the rhetoric that comes out of Trenton that says we have a spending problem. We don't. Fanwood is very well positioned this year with a $78 increase. We're not looking at furloughs, not looking at layoffs, and we're still providing services coming in with one of smallest increases we've had."

The mayor did note that the borough is facing an increase in tax appeals and delinquent taxes. One of the biggest challenges the borough faced this year was picking up its pension payment, which increased 108 percent after the council deferred half the payment last year.

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"$78 is something in this day and age, with the pension contributions to boot, that has to be something to really be proud of," Council President Russell Huegel said.

In addition this year, the borough is spending about $100,00 less in surplus and has seen its debt service decrease by $26,500. A change in the state library mandate also resulted in a $1,400 decrease in payment to the Fanwood Memorial Library.

The borough does have a couple of capital improvement projects planned this year, after nearly two years of not doing any. These, the mayor said, are tied to grants that must be used. One project will be repairing the deteriorating retaining wall by the fire house, and the other includes improvements to Belvidere Avenue and Russell Road.

CFO Fred Tomkins outlined two amendments to the budget Monday, including a slight increase in anticipated revenue due in part to rental fees for the Metro PCS tower. The other, on the appropriations site, included adding back into the budget some monies for dispatcher salaries, since the joint project with the county now won't begin until September 1. Money was also added to account for a small difference in premiums under the borough's new state health plan.

Also Monday, the council voted to establish the 1.5 percent health insurance contribution for borough employees.

During the public hearing on the budget, council meeting regular Joe Nagy commended the council for its work this year, noting that the budget has come down quite a bit since two years ago.

"I personally think when we consider where we were and where we are now, and with the school budget, I think at this point they're about 7 times higher in their increase than us, so we've had a major, major turn around," Nagy said.

The mayor noted that now coming off the Board of Education budget review, next up for the councils is deciding what suggestions out of the shared services report they'd like to implement.

Fanwood Republican Chair Joe Britt also got up to question whether any incremental salary increases are built into the budget, particularly for police officers who move up a rank. The mayor stated that these type of promotion-based increases are accounted for, but that anything above and beyond that is zeroed out. 

While the council agreed that the reductions to the police department made in 2008 and the retirements last year did help the budget, Councilman Parenti, the former police chief, noted the people patrolling the streets has not changed at all.

"The costs of operating the department are going down each year because we're working with them making changes," Mahr said. "We don't have to backfill all positions through retirements, we're achieving economies of scale and moving out the dispatcher salary line item, that was a significant piece of that. Where we are today compared to when we introduced this budget a month-and-a-half ago, now we're at a $78 increase. We were at $117 and we were working hard then, but since then we really came back and said we want to do better."


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