For the fourth year in a row, the South Orange Board of Trustees have approved an annual municipal budget that raises the tax levy by less than 2%.
The $33,530,565.05 budget entails a tax levy increase of 1.61% — for an municipal tax increase of about $82 for the average South Orange homeowner.
New Jersey governmental bodies are required to bring in budgets under a 2% cap; however, that cap can be exceeded for certain exemptions and if the town opts to use “banked cap” from previous year’s when budgets have been delivered under the cap.
Only one member of the public attended the Board of Trustees meeting to question the budget. The resident complained about the subsidy given for the South Orange Performing Arts Center ($279,500 for 2015), as well as a lack of public meetings on the budget process. The resident also said it was “outrageous” that the Board of Trustees was “finally getting to the budget” in August.
Village Administrator Barry Lewis defended the budget process, saying there had been two public budget workshops (December 8, 2014 and April 7, 2015) and that the full budget as well as a five-page Xcel spreadsheet synopsis have been available online for some time. The budget was introduced at a Board of Trustees meeting in July.
Lewis also noted that the budget was “significantly the same” as the draft budget presented at the first workshop in December.
Village President Sheena Collum commiserated with the resident on the ongoing subsidy for SOPAC, saying that “decisions were made a decade ago” regarding SOPAC that the governing body “is not proud of.”
However, Collum noted that since the Township took over ownership of the building two years ago — and under the leadership of Executive Director Mark Packer — SOPAC’s administration had seen “vast improvements,” with SOPAC actually reporting modest surpluses for the past two years.
Collum also noted that the SOPAC subsidy was shrinking (down $10,000 from last year and down from $309,500 in 2013). Collum did caution that she did not see a time when the Township would see a “rent stream from SOPAC” but she did feel that arts centers were proven economic development generators and that SOPAC was showing benefit to the town in terms of visitors drawn and dollars spent in surrounding businesses.
Collum also commended Lewis on consistently delivering budgets under the 2% cap, saying that previous to Lewis’s tenure budgets had been delivered at 20% increases and were chipped away over months of contentious meetings only to arrive at 8% increases.
Regarding the timing of the budget process, Lewis explained that the budget deadlines this year were moved due to the Township elections being held in May and were done so with state approval. Lewis also said that the process had been further delayed by state review with staffing shortages causing delays on the state level.
Find the full 2015 budget and compressed budget here. Link directly to the five-page synopsis of the 2015 Township of South Orange Village budget here.
