Freeholders Approve $140M Budget

CREST HAVEN — Without public complaint, freeholders on Tuesday, March 10, unanimously approved the $140.4-million budget to operate the county through the year.
The budget calls for $88,952,762 to be raised by taxes, about $6.2 million more than last year.
The tax rate will be 16.1 cents per $100 of assessed value, or a penny more than last year’s rate.
As she had at the Feb. 24 meeting, Sea Isle City resident Teresa Downey called on the board to use $1 million of its $12 million surplus to fund an independent panel to investigate “unexpected and unsolved deaths of women” in the county.
This newspaper previously reported Downey’s allegations from that meeting and Prosecutor Robert Taylor’s response.
On Tuesday night, Downey reiterated criticism about those investigations by present and former county Prosecutor’s Office personnel into deaths of women. Some cases have been solved while others remain unsolved; the most widely publicized being that of Susan Negersmith in 1990.
Freeholders, as they had at the earlier meeting, again flatly refused Downey’s request for creation of an independent panel to look into those deaths. They cited communications from the state Attorney General’s office that sided with the local investigations in all cases.
Taylor rose to defend his office’s conduct in all the cases. He had been absent from the Feb. 24 meeting when Downey made her initial complaint.
“You’d be the first to criticize if we out information prematurely,” Taylor said.
For a complete story on the meeting, see next Wednesday’s print edition.