STONE HARBOR – At the Stone Harbor Council meeting March 7, Chief Financial Officer James Craft summarized the 2023 budget that will come forward for introduction later in the month.
The budget calls for a 2.7% increase or $.008 per $100 of assessed value. The local tax rate will move from $0.294 to $0.302.
The budget represents an increase of $1.5 million in spending over 2022, with the largest increase being an upturn of $845,433 in debt service payment, an increase of 20.6% over 2022.
Other budget drivers include a 2.7% increase in salaries and wages, a $177,000 rise in employee health care costs due largely to a hike in state rates, and $215,000 more in pension and statutory payments.
The budget also had to make up for the loss of $85,000 in American Rescue Plan relief funds used in 2022 but no longer available in the new year.
Craft explained that the debt service rise was, in part, to bring debt service payments in line where they would have to be for a new planned issue of general obligation bonds, with the goal being not to have the new bond obligations result in a spike in future budgets.
In 2022, Stone Harbor had the highest percentage of current fund revenue allocated to debt service among the county’s municipalities.
A proposal to move part of the town’s Public Works facility off the island ended without much public discussion after a joint meeting of borough officials and Middle Township leadership over a site the borough planned to purchase in the township. The goal of that process was to sell borough-owned land on the island to pay down the municipal debt.
The water and sewer utility budget is scheduled to rise by 10% from $5 million to $5.5 million, with debt service again as the largest area of increase. Rates were recently adjusted.
