News
Under Proposed Budget, Municipal Tax Rate To Drop In Fair Haven
By Ryan Fennell
FAIR HAVEN - Residents will see a decrease in the municipal tax rate for the second consecutive year.
The Borough of Fair Haven introduced its budget on Monday night and according to the Borough Administrator Mary Howell, this year's municipal tax rate will be 2.4 percent lower than last year's.
The 2008 municipal tax rate was .481 cents per $100 in assessed value. Under the proposed 2009 budget, that rate will decrease to .47 cents per $100 in assessed value.
"The good news is that the amount of the budget is down over $200,000 from last year. In other words we are spending $200,000 less than we did a year ago,' Mayor Michael Halfacre said. "That results in a reduction in the borough tax rate.
Halfacre pointed out that the decrease is limited to the municipal tax rate and does not include several other items that appear on a resident's tax bill including the school, high school, county, county library, and county open-space tax rates.
"It is a decrease for the second year in a row which to everyone's knowledge has never happened before in the Borough of Fair Haven,' Halfacre said.
Fair Haven was able to cut the tax rate despite losing $24,000 in state aid. The completion of the borough cell tower yielded the borough over $40,000 in 2008 that can be included in the budget for 2009.
According to Howell, the cell tower will bring in approximately $80,000 in revenue for the borough in 2009 but, by law, the anticipated revenue cannot be included in the 2009 budget; only the revenue received in 2008 can be included in the 2009 budget.
Howell also informed the public that Fair Haven will not be participating in the Pension Deferral plan offered to municipalities that would allow a municipality to defer 50 percent of its pension obligation this year. The drawback of participating in the program is that the full amount would be due in 2012 including interest, which has been estimated at 8.25 percent.
Fair Haven's contribution to the pension system amounts to $158,000.
"Between last year and this year we are getting $160,000 less from the state than we did in 2007,' Halfacre said. "We took a hit of $160,000 in revenue, and we still have been able to do this (lower the tax rate).'
Halfacre attributes the ability to lower the rate to the work put in by the council and the administrator in finding ways to cut costs.
"We tinkered with the collection pickups; we tinkered with the DPW schedule; we tinkered with dispatch; we tinkered with all of these things,' Halfacre said. "The fact of the matter is all that tinkering led us to lower taxes two years in a row. In this economy that we are in right now, for us to be able to say that we are lowering taxes I think is significant. Only by lowering taxes can we provide some relief to everybody in town.'
Council President Jonathan Peters said that he was more excited to see the budget decrease by over $200,000 than about the decrease in the tax rate.
"I continue to be concerned about the financial situation out there in the marketplace. I'm also concerned about the overall rate of growth of the other items that are in the tax bill other than the town,' Peters said. "I think the Borough of Fair Haven is continuing to move toward a more fiscally responsible position.'
