Saturday, April 20, 2013
The township council adopted an operating budget that calls for a 3.45% tax increase over last year
Residents in Mahwah will pay a 3.45% increase in their tax bills over last year, as township council members adopted a $35.6 million municipal budget Thursday night. According to township Business Administrator Brian Campion, the budget calls for a $56.40 annual increase in taxes for the average home in Mahwah, assessed at a value of $470,000. Earlier this year, Mayor Bill Laforet proposed a budget that called for a 4.9% increase. Over the past several months, the township council has been amending the proposed budget during public hearings. A bulk of the tax savings came from a decision last month to use $145,000 from the township’s surplus fund in this year’s operating budget. Last month, township CFO Ken Sesholtz advised the council …
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Board will vote on the $64.8M budget next week
Next week, the Mahwah Board of Education will host a formal public hearing and vote on its proposed $64.8M school budget. According to a budget presentation Wednesday night, the budget, which calls for a 1.8% tax increase, will mean a $113 increase in school taxes for the average homeowner in Mahwah with a house valued at about $470,000, district Business Administrator Ed Deptula said. Residents can calculate what their school tax increase by estimating an about $24 increase per $100,000 of home value, Deptula said. According to district officials, changes in the 2013-14 budget over last year’s are minor, but do include some staff additions. For the next school year, Mahwah will look to hire a full-time social studies supervisor. Currently…
Monday, March 18, 2013
The police chief, prosecutor and municipal judge are expected to appear at a Thursday night budget hearing
Confusion over why police overtime costs in Mahwah jumped to about $500,000 in 2012 will “hopefully,” be answered when the Police Chief, Municipal Prosecutor and Township Judge appear before the town council during a budget hearing Thursday, Mahwah officials said at the last town council meeting. At the meeting, council members questioned who OK’d a policy apparently reinstituted last year which required Mahwah police officers to appear in court for summonses they issued. Previously, officers were not required to be in court, council members said. Last month, police chief Jim Batelli attributed the rule change to the prosecutor, and the spike in overtime costs between 2011 and 2012 to a rise in tickets written last year. According to …
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
The township will receive nearly $5M from Trenton
For the third year in a row, state aid to the township will remain the same, the state Department of Community Affairs announced Monday. Mahwah will get $4,913,416 from Trenton this year, the same amount it received in 2011 and 2012, the DCA announced Monday afternoon. According to a DCA release, the aid to every town in Bergen County will remain flat in 2013. “This preserved funding means no town in Bergen County will see a decrease in formula municipal aid for the upcoming year,” Christie said in the release. “It also demonstrates that providing stable, predictable levels of municipal aid to support local governments and taxpayers is a core priority of my Administration.” The nearly $5M figure is a drop of over $1M from the aid figure …
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Government officials say they are concerned about the local impact the automatic spending cuts could have
Mahwah township officials are “deeply concerned about the future of state aid,” in light of the potential Sequestration cuts Congress announced Sunday, Mayor Bill Laforet said Tuesday. “Whenever you hear about funding cuts on the federal level, it all filters down [and somehow] affects the municipality,” he said. The White House announced earlier this week that "sequestration" spending cuts scheduled to take hold March 1 could mean major cuts in federal money for New Jersey programs. Laforet said he is particularly concerned about potential cuts to justice assistance grants, which help offset the costs of law enforcement initiatives at the local and state level. “If [Mahwah’s federal] funding is cut, we’ll likely have to charge more taxes…
Friday, February 22, 2013
Township Council attempts to curtail rising overtime budget at public hearing
According to a budget presentation at the township council meeting Thursday night, Mahwah Police officers were busy in 2012. Last year, cops arrested a higher number of people and gave out more tickets than they did in 2011, Chief Jim Batelli told the council during the hearing. Overall, arrests in Mahwah were up over 21% over 2011, with some categories like juvenile arrests and drug-related arrests spiking in 2012, Batelli said. The number of tickets written jumped, too – from just over 5,000 in 2011 to 7,605 in 2012. While Batelli said the arrest increase is “significant,” the number of tickets issued by Mahwah police typically fluctuates between 5,000 and 9,000 per year, he said. Thursday night, the town council entered a lengthy …
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Town council members said they are willing to ‘compromise’ on a $6,000 reduction to the township’s senior center budget for running exercise and other classes
A group of over 100 township senior citizens say a $6,000 cut to the Mahwah Senior Center’s proposed 2013 budget is unfair, and asked town council members to reconsider the cut. The crowd gathered at town hall Wednesday morning for a Senior Center Advisory Committee meeting at which they explained to council members why the cut would compromise one of the services they love most about Mahwah. “It is very important for our health and happiness to be able to come here and participate in line dancing or Zumba,” resident Carol Mayberry said. “We moved to Mahwah for the senior center,” resident Felicia Fox added. According to a statement from Senior Center Director Suzanne Small, the $6,000 reduction to the professional services portion of the …
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
The township council voted to cut the Mahwah Senior Center budget for 2013 by $6,000, which the organization's director said will likely lead to fewer classes for seniors
Mahwah senior citizens will likely have fewer classes to choose from at the township’s senior center this year, thanks to a $6,000 reduction in funding that will likely be part of Mahwah’s final municipal budget this year. At a hearing on the proposed 2013 budget last week, Councilman John Roth suggested reducing the Senior Center’s budget for professional services from the requested $36,000 to $30,000 for the year. The money is used to pay class instructors. The cut “is not a reflection on the senior center…but we need to start making reductions [to the budget] without doing severe damage,” to services offered by the township, Roth said. According to Roth, the Senior Center hasn’t actually spent $36,000 on teachers for senior center …
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The township is considering upping recycling pick-up to once-a-week
Mahwah is in the middle of the 2013 budget season, which means the mayor and town council are in the middle of deciding which services the township will offer residents this year, and which it will not. Part of the mayor’s 2013 budget proposal is privatizing the township’s recycling department. According to Mayor Bill Laforet’s proposal, hiring a private company to pick up the township’s recycling would allow for pick-up to increase from every other week to once-a-week, and save the township money. While an in-depth discussion of the proposal has yet to happen in front of the township council, Councilman Roy Larsen suggested at a meeting last week that a better alternative might be to return garbage pick-up to twice-a-week year round. In …
Monday, February 4, 2013
The Mahwah township council will be questioning the DPW, police department, municipal pool, senior center and other departments on their planned spending in 2013 at meetings that begin this Thursday
Mahwah’s town council will be spending at least five dedicated meetings – including one on a Saturday morning – questioning township departments’ planned spending in 2013. The township announced last week the council will host the following special meetings at town hall to discuss the proposed 2013 municipal budget: At a council meeting last month, members said they would be calling in the heads of most departments in town to question their budgeted spending, including the police department, DPW, fire department, recreation department, senior center, municipal pool, municipal court and others. The proposed budget, which must be introduced by March 15, calls for a 4.9% municipal tax increase for 2013, which officials say would amount to …
Lower Taxes
5:24 am on Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Maybe Mahwah Township can learn something from Englewood. According to the Northjersey.com website: ENGLEWOOD — Property taxes will not increase for the second consecutive year under a $59.3 million municipal services budget adopted 5-0 by the City Council on Tuesday night. The city plans to spend about $500,000 less than it did in 2012, a result of cutting some vacant positions, automating the … more ›