Point Beach Council Holds Second Meeting On 2021 Budget

POINT PLEASANT BEACH, NJ – The Point Pleasant Beach borough council did a second reading and held a public hearing on the borough’s municipal budget for 2021 at Tuesday’s council meeting.

The proposed budget, which still has to be approved by the state’s Department of Community Affairs, of $15,896,155, which is $604,509 over the current budget.

If the state approves the budget, the municipal tax rate will go up 2.96 percent, which would equal a $62.40 increase based on the borough’s average home value of $567,308, and the tax rate per $100 would go to .439 from .428.

Councilman Bob Santanello commented that he “wasn’t happy with it,” saying that he wasn’t a fan of $500,00 being taken out of the surplus account to go towards losses suffered by the borough due to the pandemic.

Mayor Paul Kanitra said that the money taken out of the surplus was to be used for covering a large loss in parking revenue plus unexpected rises in spending on things like healthcare and pensions.

“We took over a six-figure hit on our parking revenue,” Kanitra said. “Quite frankly, we needed to spend the money to clean some things up that hadn’t been spent before.”

Despite the use of surplus money in the budget, Kanitra said he’s happy with the budget.

“In the grand scheme of things, I feel that the budget is extremely strong,” Kanitra said.