WEST WILDWOOD – Borough Commissioners introduced a $2.93 million budget April 1 (https://bit.ly/3uG7tHl). The budget includes a six-cent tax raise.
“It’s not adopted yet. That number is not set in stone yet. Our revenue and finance commissioner is working on that,” said Mayor Matthew Ksiazek, in an interview.
The six-cent raise would apply for every $100 of assessed value.
“There is a tax raise coming. That’s all I can say,” he added. “We don’t have a spending problem. We have an income problem.”
Ksiazek said that spending is down in the introduced budget, which is all that the new commissioners could do given the position they were in.
“We inherited the situation here in town. It’s been a number of years since taxes were raised. It’s also been a number of years since the town purchased any large vehicles,” Kisazek said. “There was a lot of stuff. I don’t want to say it was neglected, but it wasn’t addressed. In my opinion, it should have been addressed over the years.”
A more gradual approach to borough maintenance would’ve prevented such a sudden tax hike, Ksiazek said. He added that the surplus was depleted by $100,000 in the last year, from $410,000 to $310,000.
“Ideally, a one or two-cent tax hike over the course of the years of the previous administration is what I believe should have happened, but it didn’t, so we inherited this situation. Now, we have to deal with it,” said the mayor.
The final budget is set to be presented for adoption and a public hearing May 7.
