Singing the praises of the county executive, the Hudson County freeholders on May 11 passed a $320 million budget that will mean a reduction in county taxes for the first time in well over a decade. According to Freeholder Chairman Sal Vega, this year’s budget calls for a 28 cent decrease in county taxes. While county spending did rise by $21.2 million, total taxable property in the county is expected to rise this year by $1.2 billion dollars, making the second year in a row this increase has reached a billion dollars, more than offsetting the increase in spending. Increases were due to commitments the county has made to make improvements to roads and bridges, parks and playgrounds, and county schools. The tax rate this year will fall from $8.68 per $1,000 of assessed value to $8.40. So a house assessed at $100,000 can expect to pay about $840 for the county share of taxes this year, down from $868 last year. In introducing the budget last month, County Executive Robert Janiszewski said local taxpayers shoulder about 56 percent of the county’s budget costs with the other 44 percent paid by a variety of grants. This year, the county expects to receive about $39 million in grants. The county executive said $4.5 million in additional grants are still pending. Terrance Malloy, the Bayonne business administrator who served on the budget committee, said this year’s budget does not relay on one time tax revenues to provide for the overall decrease. He said that new revenues are still being sought out in order to keep from seeing increases in the future. He said the county is making long-term plans, and that among those might be a hotel tax. But Mallory said one-time revenues do have a use to help bridge unexpected expenses in a single year and should be used when necessary. Margaret Clark, a long time freeholder watcher, did question some business practices adopted by the board that would stretch out payments for things over a longer period of time, thus disguising the impact to taxpayers in a single year. Vega said the establishing of a budget review committee this year allowed for a cross section of the community to have a say in the budgeting process. “Even though we practice fiscal responsibility on behalf of the taxpayers, we will continue to allow other officials, representing the communities who must send out the tax bills, to have input into the process,” Vega said. “Many times, their expertise with budgets and solving fiscal problems results in sold concrete proposals which the county executive and freeholder board are happy to adopt.” Serving on the committee along with Malloy were Elizabeth Higgins, town treasurer of Harrison, James Marchetti, Jr., township manager of Weehawken, William Mitchell, an auditor for the North Bergen, and Arthur Zigman, a business consultant from Jersey City. Freeholders Thomas Liggio and Al Cifelli, as well as the county administrator and members of the county budget office, were also on the committee. “We have made a commitment to watching every dollar that’s spent and bring more people into the process,” Vega said. Mitchell, in reading from a prepared statement, said that while he was happy with the budget this year, he was concerned about meeting obligations in the future.