Municipal Budget For 2023 Introduced By Chatham Council

CHATHAM, NJ — During Monday’s meeting, members of the borough council introduced the $16.8 million municipal budget for 2023.

The budget presentation was made by the Chatham Borough Chief Financial Officer Karen Fornaro.

The expected municipal tax levy is around $9,421,662, representing a $462,653 or 5 percent increase over the previous year. The tax rate, however, is going down by 28 percent, Fornaro said.

Municipal taxes account for approximately 20 percent of a homeowner's total tax bill, the regional school district for 63 percent, and the county for 17 percent.

According to Fornaro, an average home valued at $966,000 will receive a property tax bill of approximately $14,791. The municipal portion of this tax bill would be is $2,931.

The total budget appropriations increased by 3 percent, Fornaro said. Salary and wages would increase by 3.5 percent for police, 8 percent for the Department of Public Works and 5 percent for other borough employees.

The cost of utilities increased by 17 percent, as did health benefits and pension costs.

The increased spending is required by state law to cover the pension benefits earned by employees who are members of the Public Employees' Retirement System and the Police and Firemen's Retirement System.

Following the presentation, Mayor Thaddeus Kobylarz commended Fornaro for keeping the insurance cost hike to a minimum in the face of the massive increase in health insurance premiums handed down by the state.

Expenditure increase was seen in the following areas:

• Police salaries
• DPW salaries
• Non-Police/NonDPW salaries
• Utilities
• Joint meeting expenses
• Social security

Council member Jocelyn Mathiasen, who serves on the budget and finance committee, questioned how the tax bills would work this year. Chatham Borough recently underwent tax revaluations, which were ordered by the state and conducted by Appraisal Systems, Inc.

These revaluations were meant to assess property values and fairly distribute taxes throughout the borough.

When the revaluation process was first announced, many borough officials emphasized that the process does not imply that all residents and business owners will face higher property taxes; rather, the new tax rates are based on borough-wide averages.

"Because of the way we do things in New Jersey where we pass our budget almost halfway into the year, of the year we are collecting taxes for and spending for, we bill people based on last year's taxes for the first two quarters. A lot of people's taxes are going to swing quite a bit in one direction or another. By the third quarter there will be a huge correction," Mathiasen said.

Residents, according to Fornaro, will be able to calculate their portion of the municipal tax bill using a simple calculation based on their current house assessment.

To calculate that number, a resident would take their final assessed value and multiply it by $.306 and divide it by 100 to get an estimate as to their municipal tax amount.

"I do think we need to be doing some really good education around this because people are going to be confused. One of the problems with this reval is that there were such drastic changes and it's going to affect everybody differently and so it's hard to predict," Mathiasen said.

This spending plan is only the preliminary budget. A public hearing and final vote have been scheduled for May 8.