Officials say they had to act before deadline, plan study
By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
SOMERS POINT — City Council adopted its 2021 municipal budget May 27 with no increase to the local purpose tax rate.
Council was expected to adopt the budget April 8 but decided to wait for guidance on how the city could spend federal COVID-relief funding before doing so.
City Council President Janice Johnston said that guidance never came but the deadline for passing the municipal budget is soon and the city had to act.
The proposed spending plan called for a 2-cent increase in the tax rate to $1.028 per $100 of assessed value, or $20 on each $100,000. At the time, City Administrator Jason Frost said the budget would increase the amount to be raised by taxes less than 2 percent over the 2020 spending plan but is “probably going to be well below that once we get the guidance from the state on what we can do with the COVID relief.”
But the deadline for passing a municipal budget is June 15, backed up this year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and the city could wait no longer.
Johnston said the city never got direction from the state on how the money could be used.
“We know we are going to get it but we have to wait and see what they tell us,” Johnston said.
City Council went “back to drawing board,” she said, asking each department head to cut as much as possible in a bid to eliminate the proposed increase.
The municipal tax rate will remain at $1.008 per $100 of assessed value.
“They all came in very cognizant of the year that everybody had and we didn’t want to increase anything if we could help it,” she said. “Everybody pitched in.”
The total budget is $17,097,170, up slightly from $16,913,320 in 2020. That includes $11,399,563 to be raised by taxes and $5,697,607 in other revenue including surplus and receipts from delinquent taxes.
The budget uses $2.314 million in surplus, leaving $106,213 remaining.
“This is a win for the taxpayers of Somers Point and I applaud our staff for working diligently to make this happen,” Mayor Jack Glasser said. “This is the first time this has happened in my 14 years here.”
Cannabis business prohibited in city in new ordinance
The same night, City Council introduced an ordinance that would prohibit the operation of any class of cannabis business in the city. A vote on the ordinance is scheduled for City Council’s next meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday, June 10.
Johnston said the move was made simply to protect the city from “the state telling us what we could and couldn’t do,” noting that if nothing were done Somers Point would be powerless to enact any limitations for five years.
The state set a deadline of Aug. 21 for municipalities to enact local laws regulating five of the six classes of cannabis business licenses. Municipalities can limit or outright prohibit retail, distribution, manufacturing and cultivation businesses but not delivery.
No new rules can be enacted for five years and the businesses that had opened in that time would be allowed to continue operating, effectively being grandfathered in.
“We did that just because we had to do something,” Johnston said, noting the city now has time to research the topic and “find out what the people want.”
Johnston said while almost 70 percent of state residents voted in favor of a statewide referendum decriminalizing marijuana, that is different than voting in favor of allowing the businesses to operate in their town.
“Do they want retail? Do they want manufacturing? Do they want a café? We don’t know,” Johnston said, noting the city’s Economic Development Advisory Committee would be conducting the research.