Fanwood Lowers Tax Increase for Residents

During the introduction of the 2010 budget Wednesday night, Fanwood Mayor Colleen Mahr announced that in the past day or so the borough has managed to cut the average tax increase to residents by $39.

Mahr had previously stated that residents should expect an average increase of $117, but now that number has been lowered to $78, bringing the percent increase over last year to 3.6 percent.

Two main changes were made to the budget in recent days. CFO Fred Tomkins told the council that in the past day he worked to cut about $100,000 out of the budget after learning that the governor planned to penalize municipalities who took a credit against the tax levy cap. After cutting state aid to municipalities, the governor included a provision that said towns could use a credit to go outside the 4 percent tax levy cap to accommodate the loss. But the borough just learned that if they were to do so, then the governor would penalize them at the end of the year by holding back the amount of the credit from the remainder of their aid.

Consequently, Tomkins reduced some reserve funds, worked with the surplus and anticipated some savings that will come later in the year to cut the budget.

Also, the borough recently learned that Union County has selected it as the pilot for its new police dispatching program. The borough will be eliminating the dispatching service at the Fanwood Police Department and transferring those services to the county's Ralph Froehlich Public Safety Center in Westfield. Mayor Mahr told Patch that the borough learned of its selection as the pilot site this week. The program, she said, has allowed the borough to completely delete the dispatching line item from the budget.

To date, the police department employs about seven or eight part-time dispatchers. Mahr said the county will be picking up some of them to work at the county building.

The program could begin as soon as June. Mahr said a few software upgrades have to be made before it gets going. While the borough will pay the county a fee each year for the service, Mahr said in total it will save Fanwood about $76,000 a year going forward.

"I think that, again, we all heard it loud and clear yesterday with the resounding defeat (of the school budget)," the mayor said. "People are demanding sacrifices. What we've been able to do here is really show that we can sacrifice, but at the same time be a leader in the county by understanding that you are able to dispatch from the county without really having any sort of issues internally at the police department. Chief (Richard) Trigo resoundingly supports this."

Regarding the rest of the budget, CFO Tomkins again noted that all department budgets came in flat this year. He also cited Chief Trigo's ability to significantly reduce overtime costs in the police department as another big help. Mayor Mahr noted that they were able to absorb the pension deferral they accepted last year. She also reiterated the borough's recent shift from Blue Cross Blue Shield to the state's health care program. The borough had anticipated a 22 percent increase in health care costs under Blue Cross Blue Shield, but by switching to the state program was able to reduce that increase to 3.8 percent.

"I think we came up with a budget that we got as low as we possibly could," Councilman Anthony Parenti said. "I'm sorry I can't say the same for the other two accounts — the school and county. But citizens of Fanwood can be proud of what the entire governing body and employees have done on the budget to keep it as close to flat as we possibly could."

CFO Tomkins did note that the budget doesn't come easy, though.

"It's a very tight budget," he said. "There's no fluff. If there are surprises or difficulties we have later in the year, there's no place to go to get anything. If there's something where we need another $2,000, it's just not there."

Mayor Mahr said there is some movement afoot amongst mayors to try and recoup the gross energy receipt money that was reduced for towns in the governor's state aid cuts. Previously, municipalities were under the impression that the state was not allowed to touch this money, but in the cuts this year the state reduced Fanwood's energy receipts by $162,626.

"Some towns are still showing gross receipts in their budget then suing the state for that, but we're not going down that road," Mahr said.

The mayor also encouraged residents to closely watch discussions over the next couple of months about the governor's proposed 2.5 percent tax levy cap, noting that while it may sound great in theory, it wouldn't come without significant tradeoffs.

"While the governor may think that it's a solution, unless they give us those real significant tools, then we will be making choices between keeping lights on and shutting down government, laying off police officers," Mahr said. "It sounds good now, but we have to understand if that really goes to constitutional amendment the downside that will have."

The council will hold a public hearing on the budget on May 24.

Patch is working to obtain a copy of the budget as introduced and will post it as soon as possible.