Middletown Special Budget Meeting: 15 Minutes Will Getcha 11.79% Municipal Tax Increase

I wasn't able to make it to last nights special budget introduction meeting in Middletown, I had a prior commitment that I needed to attend. However, even if I had been able to attend I may not have gotten there in time anyway, by all accounts the meeting lasted only 15 minutes. It was called to order at exactly 6pm and was over by 6:15pm, I'm told.

Given the fact that there was a major power outage just prior to the start of the meeting, which made traveling the roads nightmarish for many, it is outrageous to think that the Township would not have held up the meeting for a short while to allow people to get to Town Hall in order to hear the presentation of the amended Municipal Budget.

But I guess when you have to announce something as painful as a 11.79% increase to the municipal tax rate the sooner that you can get the meeting over with the better.

From what I have been told by a few that were in attendance, it was like mayor Gerry Scharfenberger, Town Administrator Tony Mercantante and CFO Nick Trasente had this big secret to keep. None of the 3 wanted to directly answer questions about the resolution that was introduced for the purpose of amending the proposed budget, which originally had called for a 13.87% tax increase.

When asked directly, by what percentage the tax increase to the Municipal budget was going to be, Scharfenberger kept responding "2.9%" (which has been Scharfy's standard line). The question was repeated a few more times for clarification at which point Nick Trasente stepped in and told the questioners that the information was in the resolution document and that they were still making adjustments before the budget would be formally introduced on Sept. 7th at the next meeting (Township Workshop meeting).

At that point the meeting ended abruptly some 15 minutes after it started.

You can see the resolution for yourself >>> Here

The major change proposed to the budget is that the Township will be collecting an additional $5.3M from property taxes instead of $5.5M that was proposed earlier. So the Municipal tax rate will be increasing by 11.79% instead of 13.87% and most certainly NOT the 2.9% that Scharfenberger wants all to believe.

I hope to have audio of the meeting soon so that I can hear for myself what took place. When I have the audio I'll post it here on the blog for others to listen to also.