New Tax Rate for Nutley Delayed to March 31
• State Extends Deadline, Town Still Trying to Cut Expenditures
Mar 17, 2009 – An extension in deadlines for state municipalities to submit their 2009 municipal budgets enabled Nutley Commissioners last night to delay the unveiling of the town budget until a special March 31 session. Finance Commissioner Tom Evans announced at last night's Town Hall meeting that at the present moment, overall budget figures are $93,000 below the permitted increase but departmental appropriations collectively still exceed the permitted maximum by $402,000.
"We've still got some cutting to do," Evans told his colleagues during a pre-meeting conference session last night at Town Hall.
(Corrections were made in the following paragraph on 3/18/09 at 10:26 pm)
Evans also announced that a review of the Board of Education budget yesterday revealed that while the monetary figures were correct as announced by school officials Monday night, the corresponding number in the number of tax points reflects a 272 point increase rather than the 208 previously reported.
The erroneous tax point figure was attributed to the School Board's having only a day to mull over budget figures released by the state before having to submit its calculations to the Essex County Superintendent by this morning. Evans stressed that the school's schools financial calculations were correct.
Adding to the difficulty in the budget process is the fact that state aid to Nutley has been cut by $48,000.
"Only 28 percent of our budget is covered by state aid, very disappointing considering that state aid covers 45 percent of Belleville's budget and 40 percent in Bloomfield," Evans said.
The town now has two additional weeks to adjust its municipal budget.
At the present time, the overall tax outlook for Nutley reflects about 4 points for an overall increase of $568 per household. That total breaks down to $272 for schools, $216 for the town, and $80 for Essex County.
Those preliminary figures reveal that schools account for 47 percent of the tax load, the town another 35 percent and Essex County 18 percent.
Commissioners have not publicly revealed any figures thus far concerning salary adjustments for municipal employees.
"We'll be working right up until the final deadline," Evans said. He along with Town Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Rosemary Costa will continue to work with all department heads in an concerted effort to further lower the town's budget between now and the extended deadline session of the commission scheduled for March 31.
