UPDATE: Borough Plays Budget Waiting Game for Now

It will be at least several more weeks until Madison officials have all the data they need to formulate their next proposal for the 2011 municipal budget.

At the regular council meeting Monday night at , borough administrator Ray Codey said, “By the next scheduled council meeting Feb. 28, we will have the [final] governor’s municipal state aid figures as well as snow removal overtime costs, and we will have a new budget proposal for the council.”

Codey noted that an arbitrator's decision regarding the police union contract is not expected to be known by that time.

Under the current revised proposal presented earlier by borough chief financial officer Robert Kalafut, the original expected budget shortfall was cut from $2.7 million to approximately $864,000, given a 5.73 percent allowable property tax increase. The budget gap is substantially larger absent any tax hike—a plan for which council members have already expressed a preference.

The new budget caps municipal spending at $25.2 million, up 1.78 percent from $24.8 million in 2010.

Several existing budget items may help to close the budget gap. Council member Jeannie Tsukamoto said that the borough has been ruled eligible for reimbursements by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for snow removal costs associated with the blizzard in late December.

Madison will file for a total of $50,000 in reimburements, she said, adding that the borough recouped $20,000 from FEMA for cleanup costs resulting from a damaging rainstorm in 2010.
 
Madison is also looking for savings in the trash. Mayor Mary-Anna Holden noted that the borough pays a $94 per ton 'tipping fee' separate from garbage collection charged by Morris County to dump garbage at one of the county's two transfer stations—about $20 per ton more than other counties charge their towns. She said Codey so far has had little luck getting an answer from the county as to why this is. Since Madison tips about 6,000 tons of garbage annually, lower fees could produce substantial savings. “We are trying to get an answer as to why that is, we have even gone so far as to ask the Morris County freeholders to check on it,” she said. "It's ridiculous."

Note: This update corrects an earlier statement that conflated the cost of garbage collection and tipping fees.