{"id":10447,"date":"2017-02-22T03:03:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T08:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=10447"},"modified":"2017-02-22T03:03:04","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T08:03:04","slug":"ducey-proposes-municipal-tax-cut-reduction-in-spending-for-brick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/02\/ducey-proposes-municipal-tax-cut-reduction-in-spending-for-brick\/","title":{"rendered":"Ducey Proposes Municipal Tax Cut, Reduction in Spending for Brick"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brick<\/a>

Brick Municipal Building \/ Photo: Daniel Nee<\/p><\/div>\n

Mayor John Ducey on Tuesday night proposed the first tax cut in three decades for Brick residents and pledged to reduce\u00a0the township\u2019s budget by $4.4 million.<\/p>\n

Ducey said the township\u2019s\u00a0$100,337,745 spending plan for 2017 cuts spending by\u00a0$4,451,617 compared\u00a0to 2016 and calls for a reduction of one-half cent on the municipal tax rate. For a resident of Brick with a home valued $294,100, the township\u2019s average, their property tax bill would be reduced by $14.71.<\/p>\n

The tax rate for 2017, under the proposed budget, would be\u00a068.5 cents per $100 of assessed value. This represents only the municipal tax rate \u2013 school taxes are controlled by the Board of Education and county taxes by the Board of Chosen Freeholders. Neither of those entities have introduced their budgets or announced tax rates for the year.<\/p>\n

Ducey said his administration has stabilized spending at a \u201chistoric rate\u201d following years of double-digit tax increases in Brick to the tune of 28 percent between 2010 and 2013, 19 percent between 2006 and 2009 and 27 percent between 2002 and 2005. Ducey, a Democrat who\u00a0is running for re-election this year, said during his firs term, spending increased by just 1.9 percent.<\/p>\n

Ducey credited debt reduction and fiscal belt-tightening for the reduction, as well as reduced spending on Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts. To that end, Brick will still have to appropriate\u00a0$1,484,000 to continue to pay back Sandy recovery debt, equal to 1.44 cents on the tax rate. The good news, officials said, is that this\u00a0is the township\u2019s final payment for the\u00a0cost.<\/p>\n

Sandy continues to affect the overall tax base in town. While the township\u2019s ratable base increased by $18.66 million this year, it is still $341.7 million less than pre-Sandy levels, said Edward Moroney, township spokesman.<\/p>\n

The 2017 budget\u00a0utilizes $10,928,024 from the township\u2019s surplus account toward its operating budget. Ducey said that level of utilization\u00a0leaves the township with a surplus balance of $10,955,587, the highest dollar amount since at least 1993.\u00a0 The balance represents 10.92% of the budget, the highest amount since 1994.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe surplus is essentially the township\u2019s savings account,\u201d said Ducey. \u201cHaving a healthy surplus available is a sign of fiscal responsibility and strength. There were several years where the township had less than $100,000 remaining in surplus, which put us in a very precarious position financially speaking. I am proud that we have been able to correct this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ducey touted his record as mayor during the presentation, saying despite the tax reduction, Brick has been able to rebuild many\u00a0of its parks and add more police officers to fight crime. As part of a debt reduction plan, the 2017 budget\u00a0includes $13,493,521 in debt service payments. The township\u2019s net debt as of Jan.\u00a01 is $151,310,134.down from $168,335,337 at the start of Ducey term. The plan calls for reducing debt by a total of $18,293,203 since implementation by the end of this year.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mayor John Ducey on Tuesday night proposed the first tax cut in three decades for Brick residents and pledged to reduce\u00a0the township\u2019s budget by $4.4 million. Ducey said the township\u2019s\u00a0$100,337,745 spending plan for 2017 cuts spending by\u00a0$4,451,617 compared\u00a0to 2016 and calls for a reduction of one-half cent on the municipal tax rate. For a resident […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[2766,24,92,2765],"class_list":["post-10447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-2017-municipal-budget","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-john-ducey","tag-tax-cut"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/checkbook_township.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2Iv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}