Average Morristown Tax Bill To Decrease $125 (VIDEO)

For a resident with a home assessed at $350,000, the tax bill comes out to an annual savings of $125.50 when you total up the town, school, county and library taxes.

The Morristown Council budget presentation, which is attached to this article, shows a tax rate decrease of about .3 percent at the town level, .56 percent decrease for the schools, 7.82 percent decrease for county and 4.88 percent decrease for library.

“For the third consecutive year, Morristown taxpayers will have a ... tax rate decrease,” said Mayor Tim Dougherty. “The financial impact of the town’s tax decrease to the Morristown property owner ... is for every $100,000 of assessed valuation, the property owner can anticipate an estimated $36 decrease in their tax bill.”

He added that the Morristown tax levy has steadily declined since 2010.

“We are well under (the state-mandated 2 percent tax cap) by $1 million, which is essentially where we have been the last three years,” said Administrator Michael Rogers. “All tax rates are decreasing. What plays into the school district, county and library (budgets) are equalization values that have gone down.

“State aid revenue is the same for the fourth consecutive year,” said Dougherty. “Even though our total appropriation shows an increase over the last year by nearly $1.4 million, the town is fortunate to have awarded $1.9 million more in grant funds this year than last, mainly to the Early Street land acquisition.”

Dougherty boasted the following were maintained in this budget process:

• Financial stability
• contained workforce levels
• proactive public safety
• code enforcement initiatives
• sound debt management practices
• long-range planning
• staffing changes

Pension and health care insurance costs decreased. Pension cost is around $2.5 million, which is down 13.3 percent (or $117,028). Health care insurance cost is around $5.87 million

The reasons for this include:

• a significant decline in workforce totals
• employee contribution percentage is higher

“I would like to thank all our town employees who have weathered the organizational downsizing through personal sacrifice and perseverance and remains committed to improving services despite working with fewer staff and less resources,” said Dougherty, adding that “public safety and code enforcement are critical to any municipality in preserving the quality of life. Last year seven new patrol officers were hired, raising the total to 51 sworn officers with this increase.”

He added that the police department plans to increase foot and bicycle patrols as well as regular car patrols. He said that he hopes the newly created code enforcement department will lead to a better quality of life for residents.

Debt Service

One of the largest decreases in the 2013 budget is debt service, which went down $705,172.

“Long term debt service obligation reached its height two years ago at $6.1 million. This year the town’s overall debt service obligations is $5 million,” said Dougherty. “Over the last several years, we have lowered the long term debt service obligations by $22.1 million. During the next four years, the town will pay off $17.4 of its remaining $33 million general obligation debt.

He added that going forward, the town will go with the financial approach of “pay as you go” instead “financing future capital projects with debt.”

Introducing the Budget

One of the agenda items was to introduce the budget formally. Councilwoman Alison Deeb said that she didn’t feel comfortable introducing the 2013 municipal budget yet.

“I will not vote to introduce something that I just got the same day,” said Deeb.

“I think it’s really easy, like everything else, to modify it,” said Armington.

The budget’s introduction was passed 5-2 with Deeb and Councilwoman Raline Smith-Reid voting against it.