BARNEGAT – The Barnegat Township Committee adopted the 2019 municipal budget at a recent meeting. This year’s budget is up just under $800,000 from 2018, calculated at a total of $26,492,097.19.
Of the total general fund, $22,371,250 of appropriations is within caps and $3,010,574.65 is excluded from caps. Municipalities are required to keep increases within a certain cap on a lot of line items.
Barnegat Township chief financial officer Tom Lombarski noted that some of the increases seen in this budget have to do with items “outside the cap.”
Statutory expenditures, such as pension funds for the Police and Firemen’s Retirement System, were the cause of some of the increase for this budget as well. This line item is mandated by the state and the township must adhere. The 2019 budget reflects a $131,000 increase in PFRS funds for a total of $1,624,000.
Other increases to the budget have to do with capital equipment purchases for the Department of Public Works and local fire department, said Lombarski.
The total amount to be raised by taxation for 2019 is $21,991,721.95. The tax rate will be increasing approximately 1 cent from 91.2 cents per $100 of assessed valuation in 2018 to 92.2 in 2019. Residents will see an increase of just under $25 for the entire year for the average assessed home of $238,403.
The $4,500,375.24 remainder of the budget will be funded by other sources of revenue such as Surplus, Miscellaneous Revenues and Receipts from Delinquent Taxes.
Other highlights of the 2019 adopted budget include $890,000 in anticipated surplus, up from 2018, and $1,048,932 in state aid, which is the same as 2018.
By way of comparison, the 2018 adopted budget totaled $25,699,168.02. Of that total, $21,368,713.11 was raised by taxation and $4,330,454.91 funded by other revenue sources.
