By Michael Ritchie | The Save Jersey Blog
It’s not every day that you hear about a municipality, city or borough passing a municipal budget with a 0% tax increase, Save Jersyans; it’s even more rare to see this happen in the same place two years in a row.
That feat, however, is exactly what the borough of Waldwick, New Jersey has successfully accomplished in 2014 through the leadership of its Mayor and Council.
Incredibly, the all-Republican Mayor and Council has passed two successive municipal budgets with a 0% tax increase, a budget which was preceded by a 2012 budget possessing an extremely minor increase, costing residents on average a mere additional $28 a year. It seemed incredible, if not inspirational to me, so I made sure to sit down with Waldwick Council president Donald Sciolaro recently to learn more.
When looking at the FY2014 municipal budget brochure, it’s not difficult to understand the math behind Waldwick’s success.
“We’ve created a foundation for many years that has allowed us to avoid tax increases,” said Sciolaro during our meeting. Indeed, the Mayor and Council have avoided adding considerable sums to large budget items like municipal insurance and utilities. In fact, the borough managed to reduce costs associated with police salary and wages as well as municipal sewer services.
The Mayor and Council did all this while continuing to offer the same, first-rate services in town. “Even while holding the line on taxes, we were able to rebuild our infrastructure in town” Said Sciolaro. The Council president attributes some of their budget success to identifying new shared services opportunities to help keep costs down. Waldwick currently shares their municipal court with Midland park, shares a compost lease with Ho-ho-kus, and shares a salt shed with Allendale. Incredibly, last year the borough also purchased a much needed new fire truck, without having to raise taxes.
Waldwick has done all of this while also continuing to add to the borough surplus. “We currently have a healthy surplus, guidelines in place for surplus usage, and we continue to replenish to a growing surplus”, said Sciolaro during.
Indeed, Waldwick has also relied on some good fortune to balance its budget, but with the good sometimes comes the bad.
Waldwick currently houses an energy substation which serves as a large revenue source for the borough. The revenue generated from housing this station has been continuously reduced by the state over the years, impacting the overall anticipated revenue by the borough. However, in spite of this lost revenue, the borough has been able to maintain fiscal responsibility.
Waldwick is a model town in terms of making the tough decisions needed to keep the tax burden on its residents to a minimum.
“We and our administration are diligent on finding ways to make money go further and being disciplined in the long term,” said Sciolaro. We should all be so fortunate to live in town or city with a governing body as responsible as the one in Waldwick. Let their actions be a model for all governing bodies, and let their results be a model that all strive to achieve. If more governing bodies could achieve what they’ve achieved, folks, then we may actually be able Save New Jersey!
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