Higher User Fees a Rarity in River Edge, Oradell

Over the past few weeks, news that several North Jersey towns are looking to raise various fees above the 2% mandated levy cap have led to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle stating they will introduce new laws to eliminate the local practice. Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) introduced legislation, S1914, on May 7 while Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Morris) has proposed a bill, S1895, that would prohibit emergency service fee charges.

"Municipal governments must do more to control property taxes,” Sweeney said. “Paying lip service to their residents’ needs for cost containment, then turning around and hitting them with a separate bill, is still just taking more money out of the same pocket."

Among the examples of municipalities charging their residents user fees are Tenafly increasing a youth sports participation cost, or Passaic which sends a bill to residents (or their insurance carrier) for the fire department's response.

“Fees for basic public safety services in a resident’s hour of need should not be charged at all,” Bucco said in a statement. “Without my proposal, municipalities could charge whatever they wanted for emergency services as long as the fees fall under the tax cap. That is little comfort to a resident who has been the victim of a crime or whose house is on fire.”

Luckily in River Edge and Oradell, both boroughs are served by volunteer fire and ambulance members although River Edge residents are charged a fee for false fire alarms to cover the cost of rolling out the department. Taxpayers and businesses are given a 10-day warning after the first false alarm, charged $50 after the second and $100 after the third during a one-year span.

Oradell has a similar ordinance in place for false fire alarms but was also looking to include as part of their 2012 municipal budget the creation of a sewer utility as recommended by auditor Chuck Ferraiolo.

"It would be separate from the budget and controlled by the Mayor and Council as a user fee," . "If the borough did a townwide system, each individual property owner would be billed based on their water flow from information by United Water."

But nothing has been finalized yet as the will have a public hearing on May 23.

News of municipal fee increases have led to the state League of Municipalities conducting a survey to determine how many towns are using that tactic. Results of the survey are expected later this year.

“I think mayors and governing body officials are trying to pull themselves up by the bootstraps because, quite frankly, there isn’t a lot of help from Trenton this time,” said Bill Dressel, executive director of the League of Municipalities. “They’ve got to, from their own abilities, try to manage their own scarce resources, particularly when it comes to fee-based services and programs.”

Following Sweeney's introduction of S1914, Dressel issued a letter to New Jersey mayor in opposition to the legislation. A second letter dated May 8 outlined his concerns such as:

• S-1914 only affects municipalities while County and School District user fees would be exempt
• The definition of “traditional municipal services’ is open-ended, leaving municipalities and State regulators unsure on its application and, therefore, unable to properly plan for future years.
• The bill raises concerns regarding implementation - local budgets, in compliance with the levy cap, that have been introduced and await review by the Division of Local Government Services could become in violation of a law that was not known when the municipality developed and introduced its budget.

Both boroughs charge homeowners annual dog and cat registration fees as well as a user fee for the tennis courts, receive a construction permit, obtain a commuter parking pass or receive a marriage or domestic partnership license.

Ironically, municipalities are not the only ones utilizing user fees to cover budget gaps - the state does so as well for about 10% of its budget.