Tax Increase Proposed In Bernards Township 2025 Budget

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Expanding public safety initiatives and maintaining all of the Township's infrastructure and equipment continues to be the focus in the proposed 2025 budget, which calls for a tax increase.

Bernards Township Chief Financial Officer Sean McCarthy introduced this year's $48.5 million municipal budget at the March 25 Township Committee meeting, which includes a $0.253 municipal services tax rate decrease.

This year's municipal tax rate went down 6.19 percent from last year's $0.269.

"That decrease this year is attributed to the increase in the overall assessed value we are seeing. This year, being the fourth consecutive year of a significantly reduced tax rate," said McCarthy.

A home assessed in 2025 at $871,769 will pay $88 more per year than last year or $2,202 for the municipal services portion of the tax bill. The 2024 municipal services portion of the tax bill was $2,114 for an average assessed home in the Township.

"We are clearly seeing the effect of the real estate market continuing to accelerate," said McCarthy. "The assessed values are driven strictly by the real estate market,t so as the market in Bernards Township continues to perform, as it has, we will continue to see our assessed values increasing directly correlated to that real estate market."

Overall, the budget is up 3.76 percent from last year's budget of $46,774,536 to $48,534,609 for 2025.

The main pressures driving that increase include:

• Statutory increase to the library tax levy of 10.86 percent
• Employee health benefits increasing 16 percent
• Liability and worker comp premiums are increasing 4.3 percent
• Funding for expanded public safety initiatives for an increase to the police department budget of 6.3 percent
• Overall inflationary operating cost increases on all operating budgets

This budget also mitigates a loss in state aid for 2025 of $175,000 with the municipal relief fund of 2023 and 2024 no longer being funded in the state budget, said McCarthy.

"That capital budget was the primary goal for this budget. We want to make sure that we can continue to fund our five-year capital plan and adequately maintain all the township’s infrastructure and equipment," said McCarthy. "That's been a long-term goal of ours. We’ve been building to an appropriate level of capital funding and we’re just about there this year."

A public hearing will be held on Tuesday, April 29 before the Township Committee adopts the 2025 budget. Click here to view the budget presentation or see the video below (it begins around 2:45:00):

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