Residents can comment on the city’s current $54.8 million spending plan at a council meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 2. Following that meeting, the council is allowed to approve the 2001-2002 budget or take the comments under consideration and make changes at future meetings.
The tentative spending plan, introduced at a council meeting earlier this month, covers expenditures from July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2002. The city is on a fiscal, rather than calendar, year. Many government entities are like Hoboken and run on fiscal years, although locally, the town of Secaucus runs its budget from January through December.
The city may have to put off its Jan. 2 vote if members of the Parking Authority continue to contend that they cannot afford to give the city a $2 million revenue item that is included in the budget. If this turns out to be true, the city will have to find $2 million from other sources.
This year’s budget calls for slightly less spending and taxes than last year. The city tax rate is set to fall from $7.84 per $1,000 of property owned to $7.82. Overall, the total tax rate – which includes city, school and county taxes – will be $30.98 per $1,000. That means that the owner of a $200,000 home will pay $6,196 in overall taxes during the 2002 fiscal year.
The budget numbers show that as is usually the case, the biggest portion of the budget goes to salaries and benefits for the city’s police officers, firefighters and City Hall employees. $39.435 million, or 72 percent of the budget, goes to these expenses.
The rest of the budget funds trash collection, a reserve for uncollected taxes, deferred expenses from previous years, settlements, capital improvements, insurance, utilities, and equipment.
The money to fund these expenses comes from the following sources: $16.6 million from municipal property taxes; $4.25 million in payments in lieu of taxes (otherwise known as PILOT payments) from developers who forged such agreements with the city years ago; $15.865 in government aid and grants; $3.06 million in court fines; $3.25 from the sewerage authority, $2.7 million from United Water, $935,500 in interest; $1.35 on assessments; $997,965 from construction code fees, and the rest from delinquent taxes; fees for licenses; rents on city property; reimbursements, and the parking lot tax.
To see if Wednesday’s meeting and the budget hearing are still on, call the city clerk’s office at 420-2071. The meeting is tentatively scheduled to take place Wednesday, Jan. 2 at 7 p.m. in the city council chambers on the first floor of City Hall. City Hall is located at the corner of Newark and Washington streets.