Red Bank 2021 Budget Approved With 1 Vote Against

RED BANK, NJ — The Red Bank borough council approved the 2021 budget in a special meeting this week, with a 5-1 vote.

Councilman Michael Ballard, the opposing vote, questioned the decision to use a$3.39 million in existing surplus to supplement this year's budget.

"I'm just making a point that this year we're using most of our reserves to close the gap in revenue when we have higher revenues to make a 0 percent tax increase," Ballard said. "During that down year last year when we really needed to use surplus why didn't we plug that gap so that we had a 0 percent tax rate?"

In a presentation last week, the borough Finance Committee announced that there would be a 0 percent increase in Red Banks's municipal tax rate.

However, because taxes are related to property value, residents might still pay more this year if the value of their homes increased.

READ MORE: Red Bank: No Proposed Tax Increase, But Locals May Still Pay More

The 2021 municipal purpose tax on the average residence will be $2,506.43. Compared to last year, the increase will represent an added $100,000 to the budget or $16 for the average home.

Ballard suggested that adding the surplus funds to the budget was "just to say we didn't raise taxes."

Councilman Hazim Yassin rejected that notion.

"It's not about saying we're raising taxes by 0 percent," Yassin said. "Doing something positive in my opinion is doing something positive for the residents for the sake of doing something positive."