Red Bank Amends Budget; Nominal Cuts Made

Red Bank presented its amended budget to the public at its recent council meeting. Though a number of revisions have been made to line items throughout the budget, the changes to the overall total are minor, but do include a more than $13,000 decrease.

Municipal Auditor Dave Kaplan highlighted the changes, tantamount to shuffling of revenues and expenses, at the Tuesday meeting. The public hearing and adoption of the amended budget will be held on May 11.

The amended budget is $19.932 million. The amount to be raised by taxes is $11.491 million. The decrease, Kaplan said, will not have an appreciable impact on the tax rate, which is 51 cents per $100 of assessed value, an increase of about 2.6 cents over last year’s rate.

Among the changes is a decrease in expected court revenue. Based on estimates from the first few months of the year, the borough expects to bring in $181,000 less than previously thought. On the other hand, the borough has also collected approximately $100,000 more in unpaid taxes.

To help balance the budget, the borough has also looked to its water and sewer departments to provide an additional $100,000 in available surplus funds it has accumulated.

Red Bank must pay about $88,000 more to its library.

Benefits to borough employees have also seen reductions, likely do to position losses through attrition. Appropriations for this winters blizzard, have been chopped from an estimated $241,000 to $170,000 after additional funds for snow removal were found.