TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—An average township homeowner will be forking over about $90 “more in municipal taxes in the coming 2024-2025 tax year, another extra $183 in school taxes, and a more than 2% increase in county taxes, said the township’s auditor.
Auditor Gary Vinci, of Lerch, Vinci & Bliss, said the 2024 municipal budget shows an increase of $660,000 over last year’s budget, but the impact on the municipal tax levy “is a lot less” and only increased by $337,000, said Vinci at the June 5 council meeting.
Councilors adopted an $11,063,750 municipal tab by a 4-0 vote in early June, resulting in an average $89 homeowner increase that included $75 for municipal operations and $14 for the public library. Councilor Michael Ullman was absent.
Council President Michael DeSena told Pascack Press that the council majority—himself, Steven Cascio, and Michael Ullman—were able to cut almost 10% from various accounts, totaling $362,507.
However, Mayor Peter Calamari was “not proactive” in reducing the municipal budget.
DeSena said “last-minute” 2024 capital expenses included by the mayor were: a $350,000 property revaluation, a $92,000 comprehensive Master Plan reexamination, and a $700,000 emergency Musquapsink Brook stream bank restoration project. He said these three costs wiped out any cost savings achieved over nine long, drawn-out line-by-line budget meetings in one fell swoop.
DeSena charged that without the council majority’s budget trims, the average annual tax increase under Calamari’s first-proposed budget would have been closer to $180. Calamari told Pascack Press that his budget originally presented to the council included an average annual tax increase of $160.
DeSena charged that Calamari also upped municipal employee salaries by 2.5% and failed to notify the council of large-ticket capital items before springing them on them during the latter parts of hours-long budget sessions.
In a letter to Pascack Press [Letters, Page 2], “Mayor dings colleagues on promises,” Calamari alleged the council majority did not cut the budget by 10% as promised. “They never explained how they would cut the taxes. And it is now clear they never even had a plan. It was a promise. It was a guarantee. And it turned out to be one of many worthless guarantees and empty promises,” wrote Calamari.
Over nine long budget hearings, archived on the township website, with the council majority splitting on approving budget items, the majority were often challenged over cutting items, with local employees’ salaries and benefits being generally off-limits for trimming.
Vinci said that this year’s regional school district tax—the township is part of Westwood Regional School District—was higher locally than in Westwood, noting that the tax inequity “happens periodically.” He said the average homeowner’s school tax would rise $183.
The mayor disputed DeSena’s charges. He sent Pascack Press a response and copies of the council majority’s campaign promises, which he said they did not fulfill.
“Two of the largest cuts the council made to my submitted budget were to the health plan and not funding a second police vehicle this year. Those two items alone account for $250,000 of their ‘cut.’ The three carryover council members from last year committed to fund those items this year, but Councilman Cascio went back on his commitment. It was agreed then that two police cars were needed for 2024 and the health insurance would be fully funded at the previous level until the $160,000 savings that the administrator and I proactively sought out and implemented would be realized. The budget was prepared and submitted based on those previous commitments and agreements.”
Calamari said, “The property revaluation was publicly discussed often during the last two years. The county made it clear, and we announced in public they were going to mandate it almost immediately. It also has the potential to hopefully save township taxpayer dollars by balancing our portion/percentage of the school budget with Westwood,” the mayor told us.
“The Master Plan was also spoken about for several years as our last full one was done in 1974. Many things have changed since then. The Town Planner has advised the Planning Board for years that it should be done to protect the town from aggressive development and potential litigation.”
He noted Councilor Michael Ullman, also a Planning Board member, understood the Master Plan’s need and voted in favor of it.
Moreover, the mayor noted that Musquapsink Brook issues “have been in the spotlight for some time and for Mike DeSena, an engineer who recently became a councilperson [following a previous tenure], to claim he and they were unaware of this much-needed remediation seems disingenuous,” charged the mayor.
Pascack Press previously reported that the mayor let councilors know of the $700,000 brook restoration cost offhandedly at the end of a five-plus-hour budget meeting. DeSena and other councilors wondered why the mayor delayed informing the council of the high cost after Calamari said he had received an estimate from Boswell Engineering about a week prior to the meeting.
Calamari and Administrator Mark DiCarlo mentioned the unexpected expense at 12:17 a.m. at the April 17 session, five-plus hours into a meeting that began at 7 p.m. “It just upsets me that the $700,000 for this emergency repair was not given to us until the final night of the budget [sessions],” said DeSena at the time.
See “Council intros bond over eroded sanitary lines near brook,” Michael Olohan, May 4, 2024, Pascack Press, for details.
Calamari said that DeSena, an engineer himself, should have known the brook fix would have been an expensive repair before making their promises and guarantees. “The $700,000 will protect the sanitary sewer system from spilling into the brook and is a capital spend that will have at least a 20-year useful life,” added the mayor.
Calamari said he recommended “2% raises for the staff in most cases, not 2.5%. Another lie. This is still well below the CPI increase for 2023, which was 3.4%,” the mayor told us.
Calamari told us, “They are attempting to scapegoat me for their failures. Their council majority had total control of the budget and budget process. If they paid attention to or knew anything whatsoever about the township and its budget needs, they should have known they could not have fulfilled their promises and guarantees before making them as none of these issues should have been unanticipated by them.”
Vinci also said that the budget provided a three-year plan for the township’s capital program. He said for 2024, the capital plan included “just under $1 million” for Musquapsink Brook stabilization ($700,000) and other recreation needs.
Officials also said that brookside homeowners had granted access to the brook if needed during restoration efforts to stabilize stream banks near two sanitary manholes. NJDEP “emergency” permits to perform bank stabilization are expected in several months, officials said.