BARNEGAT – A $27,905,152 budget was adopted by the Township Committee during their most recent meeting, which was streamed live because of the pandemic.
The budget includes an increase in taxes of approximately 1 cent per $100 of assessed valuation. For someone living in a house assessed at the township average, $240,000, they would pay $24 more a year.
The budget is an increase of $1,413,055 over 2019’s adopted budget of $26,492,097.
It needs to be noted that the total budget includes all sources of revenue, not just taxes.
The amount that will be raised in taxes for 2020 is $22,857,004. This is an increase of $865,283 from last year’s $21,991,721.
Barnegat Chief Financial Officer Thomas Lombarski said that the township will be paying off several lines of debt this year.
It’s bond rating recently increased to AA-, meaning that there are only two higher ratings, he said, which indicated a strong fiscal position.
A bond rating is a lot like a credit rating, but for a town. The better the bond rating, the better the interest rates.
Lombarski and other finance officials were thanked for their hard work in putting together the budget. Mayor John Novak said that it’s one thing for township officials to know that their town is fiscally secure, but it’s another thing that an outside company knows that they are secure. That’s what the credit rating company did – by increasing the town’s credit rating, they stated that Barnegat is in sound financial shape.
This took place during a meeting that was streamed live from the township’s website, Barnegat.net. Township officials sat more than 6 feet apart from each other, per medical guidelines.
