TOMS RIVER, NJ (UPDATE) – The Toms River Township Council has voted on the first reading to move the 2024 township municipal budget on first reading. That budget delivers a 0% tax increase for the community.
There will be a second reading on adopting the budget at the next township council meeting.
Facing across-the-board salary increases, double-digit increases in healthcare costs, global inflation, and the end of the American Rescue Plan’s federal funding, Toms River Mayor Dan Rodrick announced a 0% tax increase for 2024 last week,
“It wasn’t easy,” the mayor said.
This year, for the first time in decades, the township is going on the open market to find a new health insurance carrier, saving the township as much as $2 million in the first year alone.
“I promised to end wasteful spending, eliminate no-show, political patronage jobs, and deliver a budget with no new taxes,” Rodrick said. “Today, we are one step closer to making that a reality.”
Rodrick’s announcement at the Township Council meeting last week put to bed rumors that the deficit left by the previous administration was too big to overcome without new tax revenue. Instead, the mayor closed the budget gap by canceling over-priced contracts, eliminating duplicative jobs, and consolidating departments.
“When we took office, we were led to believe the budget deficit we were confronting was about $3 million,” Rodrick said. “The truth is, it was twice that much, and that’s why I’ve had to take swift and dramatic action.”
Rodrick’s only choices when taking office were to cut spending or raise taxes.
Mayor Rodrick had to make some hard decisions at town hall. When he took office, he faced a $3 million shortfall due to rising costs. That was compounded by the loss of an additional $10.2 million in federal ARP funding from the Biden administration that was used to balance the 2022 and 2023 budgets under former Mayor Maurice Hill.
Rodrick pointed out that the previous administration used $6 million of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 funds received in 2022 to avoid a 3% tax increase in 2023.
Between 2021 and 2022, Mo Hill’s administration received $10,345,343.00 from the Biden administration. That money was used to disguise the previous two budgets as being balanced.
“They weren’t,” Rodrick said. “With those funds evaporating, I had to cut a lot more fat to fulfill my campaign promise of keeping down.”
Rodrick characterized his efforts to eliminate the budget deficit as “tough choices” but said he was elected to make those kinds of decisions to lead the Township to a more prosperous future. The mayor and council eliminated over $3 million in unnecessary payroll and took the township shopping for health insurance for the first time in over 30 years, saving another $2 million.
“Right off the bat, we had to end the absurd CCO ordinance that was both unconstitutional and an extremely expensive bureaucracy,” Rodrick said. “Unfortunately, by the time we killed the ordinance, more than half of the money allocated to support it had already been spent in the fiscal year, so we had to look elsewhere to save money.”
Rodrick said that’s exactly why he won’t immediately replace two retiring police captains and why he’s asked the County to manage animal control services for the Township.
“By not replacing those two captains, we’re saving nearly $700,000 in salary and benefits,” Rodrick said. “By consolidating our animal control services with the county’s program, we’ll save nearly $1 million. These are reforms that others have talked about for years, but our administration is getting them done.”
Still, Rodrick said the 0% tax increase isn’t the only thing he’s proud of in the new budget.
“We found a way to increase life-saving emergency medical services by hiring 8 new EMTs in our police department, thereby ensuring there is a new ambulance on the road 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” Rodrick said. “This will dramatically decrease response times and save lives. That’s what the government has to do first and foremost at the end of the day.”