Franklin Lakes Taxes to Increase by $51 Per Average Assessed Home

The Borough of Franklin Lakes adopted the proposed budget on Tuesday evening that will increase the tax bill for municipal services on an average assessed home by $51 for next year.

The amount to be raised by municipal taxes is $11.02 million, an increase of 1.88 percent over what the 2012 budget brought in. This leaves Franklin Lakes $1.4 million below the State Levy Cap of 2 percent.

“It’s a great effort on behalf of the council to meet our objectives which is really about maintaining surplus, reducing debt and keeping taxes under a 2 percent increase,” said Mayor Frank Bivona. “We’ve been working with that process for the last 3 years now and we’re really sticking to our guns on it.”

The total 2013 budget $16.53 million. Here is a breakdown of some of the numbers as released by the Borough:

• Salaries and Wages - $5.29 million
• Debt service - $1.66 million
• Healthcare insurance – 1.48 million
• Municipal Library - $1.45 million
• Pension contributions - $0.89 million
• Garbage and recycling collection and disposal  - $0.73 million

Notable increases on the budget adopted in 2012:

• Capital improvements - $387,700 – part of continuing effort to fund recurring capital purchases in operating budget instead of incurring debt.
• Employee salaries - $158,764 – majority of salaries are set by collective bargaining agreements negotiated at or near the 2 percent municipal goal.
• Debt Service - $255,546 – increase attributable to additional paydown of principal.
• All other appropriations actually decrease by nearly $600,000.

Only 14.9 percent of the tax dollars generated will be put toward municipal use. The same 14.9 percent goes toward County government, 28.2 percent goes toward regional schools and 39.3 percent goes toward local schools.

Please check out the attached slide show for a detailed presentation of the adopted 2013 budget.