Administration officials announced that Bayonne residents will likely see a tax increase of about three percent when the municipal budget is introduced at next’s month Bayonne City Council meeting.
“It is estimated to be 2.9 percent above the 2014 budget,” Chief Financial Officer Terrence Malloy said at the Bayonne City Council’s regular meeting on March 18.
That figure could change because the budget is still being worked on, Malloy said.
“To no one’s surprise, there have been several challenges,” Malloy said. “They are confronting us now and in future years.”
An over-reliance on non-recurring revenues, or one-shot fixes, in the past has positioned the administration where it must now make strong choices.
“We can raise taxes, reduce services, or both,” Malloy said.
City officials have been discussing the budget for a few weeks now, and Business Administrator Joseph DeMarco and Mayor James Davis had both previously said there would be an increase in 2015, Davis’s and DeMarco’s first full year at city hall.
Malloy attributed much of the tax increase to the city’s structural deficit, a recurring annual debt that last year was about $24 million and has been whittled down to approximately $21 million this year.
DeMarco and Malloy had addressed the council and others gathered during the meeting’s public portion, so that there could be an “open dialogue” on the budget process.
Malloy gave the audience a primer on the city’s structural deficit, saying its beginnings reached back into the early 1990s.
“It is estimated to be 2.9 percent above the 2014 budget.” – Terrence Malloy
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The structural deficit peaked at more than $53 million in 2007, in part because of the upgrades to the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, the former Military Ocean Terminal, from which the city expected to derive tens of millions of dollars in land sales for various residential and retail developments, something which did not occur.
Despite expectations for vast proceeds from the Peninsula, only one residential complex has been completed there. None of the retail development proposed for it has been realized. A hotel for the site, talked about for years, has not yet come to fruition.
Other things that have hurt the city over the years have been successful tax appeals against Bayonne, and the city having to make up the difference of expired short-term federal grants for items such as additional police hirings. Taking over MOTBY also meant an increase in hiring for both firefighters and public works employees.
Good news
There was positive budget news in recent years, Malloy said, including reducing the city’s annual emergency services contract to a $0 fee this year; municipal employees now paying a share of their benefits costs; and some city debt being retired.
Officials said that the 2015 budget should be introduced at the council’s April meeting, with a June adoption slated.
Joseph Passantino may be reached at JoePass@hudsonreporter.com.To comment on this story online visit www.hudsonreporter.com.