Living in Closter is going to cost at least $343 more this year, according to the municipality’s budget.
Borough officials proposed increasing the municipal tax levy by about 14 percent, during a special meeting last week introducing the budget that would exceed state cap laws. State law mandates that the tax levy can only increase 4 percent over the previous year’s.
Officials said the increase is necessary because of rising costs they have no control over such as utilities, contractual obligations, pension figures and the lack of state aid to help fund these things.
"We cut about every single area that is ours to work with but the portion that is flexible is so small compared to the portion we can’t do anything about," Mayor Sophie Heymann said.
The tax levy residents will be asked to shoulder, according to a preliminary budget of $13,417,485, is $9,728,336. This is $343 more annually on the average home assessed at $780,000.
However, the borough is applying for extraordinary aid to help offset this burden, Heymann said.
"We are going to get it down," said Heymann, adding that a lack of revenues have contributed to the problem of managing the rising expenses.
"Our real estate value has gone down instead of up. Individual values of homes have gone down from the time they were reevaluated in the peak of August of 2006. So houses are selling below their assessed value and every house is getting a tax appeal, which decreases the tax roll," Heymann said.
Acting Borough Administrator John DiStefano said that in trying to control costs, "every single department saw a cut" in terms of operating expenses.
"We looked at what departments spent last year and what they originally budgeted for and expended. And we saw if we could leave it where the expenditures were or cut or consolidate," he said of how the borough attempted to save money.
Explaining the distribution of salary raises, in particular the $47,014 increase in the Finance Department, DiStefano said it was a matter of "shifting bodies."
"We shifted bodies into where I felt that they should be. The deputy treasurer moved over into the finance side and was taken out of revenue. It was a movement of where I felt bodies should be properly be allocated," he said.
The salaries for the Revenue Department are $76,446 less than last year.
DiStefano could not estimate how much the state may grant Closter in extraordinary aid but he said the next step would be to apply for a cap waiver.
"There are specific steps. We apply for extraordinary aid first and then the cap waiver. We don’t know what if any monies the state will give you… If we get any extraordinary aid that would reflect on the cap waiver amount," he said.
According to the Department of Community Affairs Web site, in the event that the cap waiver is denied, "the local unit can proceed, pursuant to the law and conduct a local cap referendum."
