Fair Haven's Budget Is Back to Zero Tax Hike

They whittled and whittled away until they got what they wanted — a municipal budget with no increase for taxpayers.

That's what Fair Haven Mayor Ben Lucarelli credited administration and council members with doing to keep that municipal portion of the tax bill level. And they say they did it for residents who they feel cannot and should not deal with any increase while still grappling with an unsteady economy.

The budget is in the workshopping phase. It is slated for introduction at the next meeting in April.

The first draft budget, discussed at the prior council meeting, proposed a 1.1-cent per $100 of property value increase. Considering that the average property in Fair Haven is assessed at $550,678, that translated to an average hike on the municipal portion of the tax bill only to about $62 a year.

"Jon(athan) Peters (who serves as the governing body's finance liaison) did a lot of hard work to make sure he came back to the discussion table with a zero increase," Lucarelli said. "His feeling, and that of other council members, was that he was committed to making sure residents didn't have to pay one penny more in municipal taxes at least."

Not all council members agreed at the last council meeting. Some were of the opinion that dipping into the surplus too much would adversly affect the borough's credit rating and not be fiscally prudent.

All six council members, though, had concurred with the first draft of the $8.2 million budget that they're dealing with a tough call to make: deciding whether or not to strain an already nearly drained surplus to keep taxes level and municipal services at a premium; or break a five-year record of no municipal tax increase and enter a danger zone of depleting surplus to prevent any hike.

In order to get to a zero hike without straining surplus, Administrator Theresa Casagrande had said that $150,000 would have to be lopped off of the spending plan. Currently, there is $950,000 left in surplus.

Casagrande had cautioned at the meeting prior that "we can keep cutting the spending, and that's a good thing to do. But we're running out of surplus fuel in the tank. The surplus has diminished (because of taking from it to stave off tax increases) and (bond/credit) rating agencies are saying 'Don't go any lower.' It's not a spending problem, it's a tax levy problem. We haven't had a tax increase in five years."

In keeping with the proposed zero hike, Lucarelli said that the surplus was nibbled at and there were capital improvement cuts. Some cuts were steep, but in line with the austerity necessary to keep the budget lean and responsible.