Split Point Borough Council Adopts Budget with $70 Annual Hike on Average Home

A split Borough Council voted narrowly Monday night to adopt a municipal budget that will raise the municipal tax rate by .018 cents per $100.

That will mean an increase of about $70 per year on the average assessed home of about $383,000 to support a municipal tax levy of about $12.4 million, said Councilman Chris Leitner, chairman of the council's finance committee, after the brief meeting.

The former rate of .364 cents per $100 assessed valuation is increasing by .018 cents to .382 cents, said Councilman Robert Sabosik, a member of the council's finance committee.

Democrats Leitner, John McHugh Jr. and Chris Goss voted for the budget but Republicans Sabosik, Toni DePaola and Mitch Remig voted against it.

That left Democratic Mayor William Schroeder to break the tie, which he did by voting to adopt.

He said passing the budget was necessary to get the town back on the right track and move forward.

During the meeting, the Republicans did not say why they were voting no.

After the meeting, Leitner characterized the no vote as "political. I've been asking, begging, for ideas publicly and privately. And they haven't given us ideas. We just got a no vote tonight."

He, McHugh and Schroeder said Republicans have not presented viable alternatives to the version of the budget that was adopted that they described as balanced, responsible and paving the way for a viable budget next year, as well.

However, Republicans insisted, in interviews after the meeting, that they offered plenty of ideas in committee and council meetings for cutting expenditures and increasing revenue to help offset the tax increase. They claim Democrats dismissed many of those ideas.

For example, Remig said he had suggested in closed session at an earlier meeting that the borough use about $600,000 from deferred school taxes to help offset the projected tax increase.

However, council voted to only use about $354,000, he said.

When asked why he had not made that proposal at a council meeting, he said he had proposed it in closed session. When asked why it was in closed session, he said, "I don't know."

Closed session is for personnel, litigation and contract negotiations. Other discussions should be done in public, according to the state Open Public Meetings Act.

Leitner had said the Republicans voted no on the budget because there is a tax increase.

"They're in the minority, so they can vote no, even though this is a responsible budget," he said.

"I did vote no because there was a tax increase," Remig said after the meeting. "If we keep doing this, no one in my generation will be able to live in Point Pleasant any more."

Remig, 22, is by far the youngest member of the governing body.

Sabosik said his Democratic colleagues agreed to use only part of the total savings he found in "interfunds" which means funds that have money remaining from earlier allocations.

"How can they say we gave them no ideas?" he asked, pulling out binders of budget documents and worksheets. "I worked for hours on this budget. I showed them all of this."

"This" includes Sabosik's recommendation to council to use $375,000 from the general budget fund, $517,000 from the reserve for repayment of debt and $500,000 from an "interfund trust fund," for a total of nearly $1.4 million.

"Not all of it was used in the budget, though," Sabosik said. About $1.2 million, or about $200,000 less was used, he said.

He said that because $1.4 million was used, there was no need for layoffs, demotions or any furlough days beyond the four that most employees have already taken.

DePaola said there was more room for cost-cutting and for increasing certain revenue streams, such as Construction Department inspection fees.

"They haven't been raised in a long time," she said.

DePaola said she serves on a council committee that is considering doing that, but that it needs to be done soon.

She also said that not all of the five inspectors in that department should be full-time.

"The department has hemorrhaged about $100,000 during the first six months of this year," she said. "It's supposed to be self-sustaining, but it's losing money.

"I had said we should have the state do inspections and it would cost us nothing," she said. "That's just one example of ideas that we gave them. But they don't listen to us."

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However, Schroeder said the borough did not furlough police because state law prohibits it.

Despite the split vote for the budget, the council to add about $258,000 to the budget to help plug a deficit.

Borough Administrator David Maffei said adding funding for salaries that would have been lost through layoffs reduces the amount the town has to pay for unemployment benefits.

However, Maffei said he also had to add in health care benefits costs. The net result of the additions and reductions came to a net addition of $258,000, he said.

The $258,000 comes from $354,000 the borough is borrowing from school tax revenue or deferred school taxes.

The borough council had voted at the June 9 meeting to borrow $354,000 from school tax revenue.

The borough is able to do that because it collects taxes for the municipality, school district and county. It collects the taxes for the school district six months in advance and, when borrowing from those funds, the borough must pay the money back six months later so the schools can function.

"We are legally obligated to pay back 100 percent of the money to the schools in six months," DePaola had said after a June meeting.