Sea Girt Taxpayers Invited to Hear About Upcoming Budget

Although Sea Girt’s 2011 municipal budget is still a work in progress, borough officials are ready to field taxpayers’ questions and concerns about the forthcoming spending plan during two public hearings set for next week.

 The hearings, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. on both Tuesday, Feb. 15 and Wednesday, Feb. 16, will take place inside the technology center at Sea Girt Elementary School. Officials will present proposed budget figures for individual municipal departments in one-hour segments each night according to Mayor Mark Clemmensen.

On Tuesday, the police department budget will be presented at 6 p.m.  Budget items pertaining to the borough hall, library and recreation department will be presented at 7 p.m.

On Wednesday, the beach budget will kick off the agenda at 6 p.m. The public works budget will be presented at 7 p.m. and the fire department budget presentation will follow at 8 p.m. Residents are welcome to attend one or both hearings.

After listening to the public’s input, members of the Borough Council’s finance committee will meet to discuss any issues raised during the hearings said Councilman Ken Farrell, who chairs that committee.

In the meantime, the finance committee is still waiting for state aid figures to come from Trenton. Once borough officials receive an exact dollar amount from the state, that figure can be added into the proposed budget.

Farrell expressed confidence that the borough will hear how much state aid it will receive by mid-March. Any surplus left over from the 2010 municipal budget will also be added into the proposed budget, he added.

 “With any luck we can introduce [the budget] by April 9,” Farrell said.

Otherwise, the crafting of this year’s spending plan is coming along. The finance committee has wrapped up its discussions with heads of each borough department to assess their budgetary needs, Farrell said.

Like other New Jersey municipalities that budget for a calendar year, Sea Girt is operating on a temporary budget, based on last year’s figures, until it a permanent spending plan is approved for calendar year 2011.

As a part of its financial planning, the council will hold a public hearing and a vote on an ordinance to raise the state-imposed two percent taxation budget cap to 3.5 percent as is allowed by state law. The 3.5 percent budget cap amounts to $178,976.57 more than municipal budget for calendar year 2010.

In other business, the council unanimously voted to waive the $65 demolition permit fee charged to any property owner who donates an empty building to the town’s fire department before tearing it down. The fire department, in turn, can use that building temporarily for training exercises before the owner demolishes it.

Council President Fred Niemeyer encouraged his colleagues to back the fire department’s request to pass the motion waiving the permit fees. Doing so might encourage more property owners with abandoned buildings to turn them over for fire department use before demolition.

Sea Girt firefighters, who are covered by their own department’s insurance, could then use the empty structures to run through the drills they would use in an actual house fire, Niemeyer explained. At present, the firefighters often must go out of town for such training.

“It sounds like a no-brainer. Let’s do it,” Niemeyer said.

About ten demolition permits are granted in the town per year according to Business Administrator Al Bunting.

In a separate matter, Clemmensen acknowledged the retirement of Municipal Court Judge E. Thomas Brennan who recently left from Sea Girt’s courtroom bench after 26 years. The council’s personnel committee is now seeking a replacement municipal judge.