The two major components of Roselle Park homeowners’ property taxes – the Board Of Education (BOE) and the municipality – will both be holding budget meetings this coming week.
The BOE will be giving its second budget presentation on Monday, March 14th at 7 p.m. at the Roselle Park Middle School (RPMS) auditorium. It is expected that an estimate will be provided at that presentation of the tax impact to Roselle Park property owners as well as more details on the 2016-17 school year budget. This presentation will have a public comment portion but will not be a legal meeting since it will not have a quorum of BOE members. Usually members of the finance committee are on hand to answer any questions and provide information.
Mayor & Council’s third budget workshop for Thursday night, March 10th, at 6:30 p.m. was canceled due to a lack of a quorum. The seven member governing body had four of its members – Mohamed ‘Gino’ Elmarassy, Eugene Meola, Joseph Petrosky, and Charlene Storey – notify Borough Hall that they would not be available for the meeting. The workshop was canceled at 4:15 in the afternoon of the 10th. This marks the first time in years that a workshop – which is scheduled well in advance and discussed to make sure that elected officials do not have any unforeseen conflicts – was canceled due to not having enough members be able to attend.
The meeting was re-scheduled for this Wednesday, March 16th, at 6:30 p.m. in the second floor conference room of the Roselle Park Municipal Complex. That date might be a conflict for Councilwoman-At-Large Charlene Storey who is the liaison for the library board; their meeting is scheduled for the same evening at 7 p.m.
The municipal budget workshop is expected to hear more from certain departments including the Casano Community Center, the Department of Public Works (DPW), and the Recreation Committee on their budget requests. The second budget workshop lowered the assessed property tax impact by over 25%. The original property tax impact for a house assessed at the new revaluation average value of $253,000 was $136.62 and that was lowered by almost $38 to $98.67.
In 2015, the average assessed increase was $99.45 for the municipality and around $300 for the school district.