PETERSBURG — Township Committee adopted its $18,409,035 spending plan April 13 calling for a 2.97-cent tax rate increase.
The 9 percent rate hike boosts the total municipal tax rate to 35.3 cents per $100 of assessed value, or $353 on each $100,000. That’s a total municipal tax bill of $1,059 on a $300,000 home. There also is a fire district tax, school tax and county tax.
The municipal tax levy would increase $613,877 to $6,826,420. The rest of the budget is funded by $6,191,482 in energy receipts taxes for hosting the former B.L. England Generating Station, surplus, miscellaneous revenues and receipts from delinquent taxes. The township plans to use $2.9 million of surplus to fund the spending plan.
“Our primary focus this year was on aggressive cost management to mitigate mandatory increases,” Township Administrator Jimmy Van Zlike said. “By shopping the health insurance market and switching to a JHIF plan, we rejected a projected 40 percent state increase. This switch limited our health benefit cost increase to 5.1 percent and effectively saved the township approximately $700,000 compared to the state plan.”
Van Zlike said the township is not spending any significant amount of money in the coming year that would contribute to the tax increase.
“This budget reflects the reality of rising costs for essential supplies like fuel, vehicle parts and maintenance materials,” he said.
The municipal portion of a tax bill usually is the smallest portion, as is the case in Upper Township where 13.75 percent funds public works, EMS, recreation and government services.
By contrast, the school district uses 67.5 percent of the $48 million the township collects, while the county uses about 14 percent and the fire districts, which help fund the volunteers companies, about 4.75 percent.
“We had to raise about 2.97 cents of valuation on properties to capture about $690,000 to cover inflationary costs. That’s salaries, that’s increased costs due to tariffs, that’s gas prices, that’s just us doing business,” Van Zlike said.
Storm debris pickup
Committeeman Zach Palombo said the Department of Public Works is nearly finished cleaning up from two major snowstorms that hit the region Jan. 25-26 and Feb. 22-23, blanketing the area with a combined more than 3 feet of snow.
“As of right now, from the winter storms that we had … we’ve had over 500 tons of debris picked up,” he said, noting work was moving toward completion on Route 9 and Petersburg.
He noted standard leaf pickup is set to begin April 20.
AV improvements
Van Zlike said IT infrastructure upgrades are under way that should (fingers crossed) result in better acoustics in the courtroom where Township Committee meetings are held.
In addition, the audio and video recording equipment will be modernized, allowing for meetings to return to YouTube.
“If you log into the meetings, the video hasn’t been working, the audio’s not that good. So in the future, you’ll see some sound editing panels so that my voice doesn’t echo so much,” Van Zlike said. “The recording equipment will be a little bit more responsive, the video will be clearer and it’ll be more in line with the rest of society today, streaming digital culture upgrades.”
– By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff