HILLSDALE—Mayor John Ruocco reached out to borough taxpayers with their estimated third quarter property tax bill for 2022. He said final reconciled fourth quarter 2022 and preliminary 2023 bills will go out once the county tax levy is known.
And he said, “We have estimated that levy for purposes of this notice, and believe it produces a very close approximation to what your final tax bill will be. Your overall property tax bill is divided as follows:
- Hillsdale Local School tax: 45.2%
- PVRHS Regional School tax: 24.4%
- Municipal and Library tax: 20.9%
- County and Open Space: 9.5%
Ruocco also commented on the municipal portion of the budget, which is the only portion that the mayor and Borough Council have control over.
“The governing body adopted a record $16.5 million budget, which is 5.6% larger than last year. However, this includes revenues and offsetting appropriations in 2022 for the federal government’s American Rescue Plan which were not included in the 2021 budget. Excluding those revenues and appropriations, the size of the adopted budget actually declined by 1.3%,” he said.
Ruocco said, “The municipal and library tax rate per $100 of assessed property valuation this year is $0.630, compared with $0.622 in 2021. When applied to the average home assessment value of $468,049, municipal and library taxes increased by $47 or 1.6%.”
He said, “If one excludes the minimum library tax of $656,000 which the municipality is required by law to levy on residents, municipal taxes increased by $37 or 1.4%.”
On the revenue side, he said, “The budget does not reflect any increase in annual state aid, consistent with Trenton’s freeze for the past 11 years. Revenue derived from taxation of residents increased by $125,000 to reach $10.76 million this year, while the amount of accumulated surplus from prior years typically relied upon to ensure that revenues match expenditures declined by $463,000 from last year to aggregate $1.52 million in this year’s budget.”
On the expense side, he said, “The borough budgeted for a 2% increase in salaries & wages to $4.60 million. Other operating expenses are budgeted to increase 4.3% to $7.47 million. Contributions to pension funds increased by 13.2% to reach $957,000.”
Ruocco said, “Appropriations to the capital improvement fund declined 54% from $1.49 million to $689,000. Funds appropriated to servicing municipal debt declined almost by half to $319,000 reflecting the net effect of having paid off our long-term bond in 2021 but providing for a three-fold increase in short-term debt expense to accommodate capital expenditures.”