Fanwood Introduces Amended Budget

After amending its budget in response to the recent denial of extraordinary aid, the borough council introduced a new municipal budget at a special meeting of the mayor and council on Tuesday night. 

“There are a couple of minor differences from the original (budget) which have to do with things that the state asked us to do, which is basically just moving things around in different places in the budget,” said Fred Tompkins, chief financial officer for Fanwood. “The amount being raised by taxation changed slightly, but it went down a little bit more than what I originally had said. It’s down actually below the levy cap now.”

The following changes were announced:

-Total general appropriations in the new budget are now $8,484,587.19, reduced from $8,587,003.32 in the original budget. Local revenues have been reduced from $704,796 to $645,196. The reserve fund for uncollected taxes was reduced from $360,000 to $291,073, and capital improvements from $200,000 to $150,000, to help bring the $8.7 million budget under the tax levy.

-Total miscellaneous revenues increased from $1,885,657.46 in the original budget to $1,901,976.02 in the amended budget.  

-Money designated as “Special Items of Revenue Anticipated with Prior Written Consent Director of Local Government Services-Public and Private Revenues” increased to $25,328.69 in the amended budget, up from $8,225.13.

-The borough has also received several revenue sources not originally accounted for. The "Click it or Ticket" program will add $4,000 to the budget; the Enforcement Education Campaign will add $2,000; and the Drunk Driving Enforcement Fund will add $4,246.78. The Municipal Alliance Grant and Recycling Tonnage Grant will also bring in $2,123.69 and $2,464.48, respectively. The Clean Communities Act will bring in $10,493.74, up from $8,225.13 in the original budget.

Tompkins said at a previous meeting that the changes were accounted for by taking a look back over the budget to see which accounts needed additional funds, and which ones had excess monies.

“Knowing that we need to adjust the budget now, we went through different accounts to see where we stood,” Tompkins said. “We saw which accounts we needed to put more in, and which we needed to take out of, and those more or less balanced each other out.”

Tompkins said at the time that some of the decisions, including cutting the reserve fund, will ultimately hurt the 2010 budget, but that because of the circumstances, they didn't have any choice but to make those moves.

The borough was forced in early August to quickly find a way to reduce its budget after finding out at the time that it wouldn't receive nearly $398,000 in extraordinary aid from the state.

Mayor Colleen Mahr was not at Tuesday night's meeting, but will be at the next one to vote on the adoption of the changes. Tompkins said that he will present a pie chart illustrating a specific break down of the budget at the mayor and council’s Sept. 8 meeting. A public hearing on the changes, along with the vote for them, will also be held at that time.