HILLSDALE—The Borough Council adopted a nearly $16 million 2023–2024 municipal budget at its May 2 meeting, adding $46.32 to an average homeowner’s annual taxes — an increase of 1.6% over last year.
The council voted 5-1 to approve, with Councilman Zoltán Horváth opposed. Council introduced the budget at its April 4 meeting. Chief Municipal Finance Officer David Young provided a budget overview on May 2, noting the budget maintains and improves local services, and “does a very good job of doing that.”
No comments were made during the budget’s public hearing.
At its introduction, Councilwoman Abby Lundy said, the amount to be raised by taxes to support the budget, including the Public Library, is $10,889,947 an increase of $128,689 or 1.2% over the 2022 tax levy.
She said this will result in a municipal tax rate of 63.7 cents which is an increase of .008 cents per $100 of assessed valuation compared to the 2022 rate of 62.9 cents.
She noted, “Applying this tax rate to an average Hillsdale home assessed at $469,392, municipal taxes will be approximately $2,990.30 vs. the 2022 average of $2,943.98 — an increase of approximately $46.32 per home.”
The full April 4 budget presentation can be viewed on the council agenda/meeting website.
During the May 2 meeting, Horváth, a candidate for mayor, introduced amendments to further reduce the budget increase, but his motion failed to receive a second.
Despite the nominal budget increase, Mayor John Ruocco, a candidate for council, spoke against the issuing of debt to finance future road improvements, an accounting method used in the approved budget.
“(This) will mean an ever-increasing amount of debt to be borne by residents to pay for what is a regular annual operating expense—keeping our roads up-to-date. That’s never a good idea, even if the state says the roads have a useful life of 20+ years and technically you can treat them (as) a capital expenditure eligible for borrowing. That doesn’t mean it’s sound,” Ruocco said.
He added, “When the budget was introduced, I read into the record a spreadsheet that portrayed the growth of our surplus over the past several years. Now we know from the engineer’s report that our surplus account stands to increase further by $600,000 from grant reimbursements that are due us.”
He asked, “So why are we increasing the tax burden on our residents by 1.6%? It brings in $129,000. Excluding the library portion of that tax increase, we could easily charge the remaining $82,000 to our $5.3 million surplus account. So instead of increasing taxes by $46 (per) household, it would be only $13 (per) household. I also wonder how we justify raising property taxes unnecessarily.”
Ruocco noted local taxpayers “face an extraordinary increase in taxes” due to future renovation of George G. White Middle School, in addition to debt service on a likely $10 million bond in 2024 to pay for improvements on Centennial Field, a new Stonybrook Community Center, and upgrades to protect the DPW building from flooding.
Ruocco dinged the council for approving “an almost 50% increase in compensation” for mayor and council, adding $21,000 in costs, which he called “gluttonous.” He said the increases would make Hillsdale the “highest paid” mayor and council among Pascack Valley’s 10 towns.
During council commentaries, the mayor, who speaks first due to a change in council by-laws, said he had a “sense of disappointment over the council’s willingness to increase property taxes when it is unnecessary, and the lack of transparency in failing to highlight for the residents the greater reliance on debt to fund the road improvement program.”
Councilwoman Janetta Trochimiuk said the stipend increases for council members and the mayor were long overdue, as no increases had occurred since 2005.
She said the increased stipends were simply adjusted for cost of living increases over a nearly 20-year period.
The new stipends increase annual council compensation to $10,000 per member, and the mayor to $13,000.
She said the increased stipends bring local officials “up to par where we should be” and said they might attract more residents to step forward and run for public office.
She said she did not think the stipend increases were “greedy or overstepping and all these negative adjectives” used by Ruocco.
She said the increases cost about $7 yearly or 2 cents a day to give the council and mayor a raise.
Council President Anthony DeRosa said Ruocco’s “disappointment over the budget crosses over to being accusatory of council trying to intentionally deceive the public.”
DeRosa “took exception” to Ruocco’s description of the budgeting process. “There’s nothing intentionally being done to deceive the public. It’s just different than the way that you would do it, and that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it’s just different.”
DeRosa said he spoke to the borough clerk and administrator about getting out more information through borough social media to better inform residents about local issues and help prevent misinformation. He said more information on local topics was being posted on the borough’s Facebook page, and Twitter was coming.
Councilman Justin Fox said the borough had the “second largest” surplus out of Pascack Valley towns and also the “second lowest” tax increase.
Lundy, Finance Committee chair, said she disagreed with Ruocco’s statement about a lack of transparency. She said she reviewed other towns’ websites and said Hillsdale was “the most transparent” of all the towns, noting Hillsdale was the only town adding links to resolutions on agendas.
The council offers a hybrid meeting format where residents can join meetings remotely on Zoom or watch the meeting later on YouTube. Meetings are archived online. Generally, agendas link resolutions and ordinances up for a public hearing, plus selected professional reports from the consulting engineer, public works superintendent and police chief.
She said Ruocco compares Hillsdale to other towns “when it suits your narrative” and said it was “a silly comparison.”