 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Write
to Pat Lepore at: Mayor Pat Lepore BOROUGH OF WOODLAND PARK Municipal Building 5 Brophy Lane Woodland Park, NJ 07424-2752 or Send E-mail to: plepore@wpnj.us The Mayor’s office door is open on Mondays for meetings with any Borough resident, but due to his busy schedule,appointments are preferable. |
 |
|
As you know, the 2009 Property Tax Bill was recently mailed to every property owner in the Borough of Woodland Park. Like every other municipality in the State of New Jersey, our borough has been faced with increased costs in healthcare, salary and operating expenses. And, the historic downturn in our economy has only made meeting our expenses all the more challenging. The loss of revenues, state aid and increases in fixed costs, which this Governing Body has no control over, has made budgeting more difficult than in past years. Adding to the problem, has been a significant increase in Police Department overtime due to staffing deficiencies as a result of workmen’s compensation injuries and having two of our officers serving in the military at various times. Despite all |
||||||
| of these challenges, the Council and I have worked to limit our spending increases to 1.4% while maintaining the same level of service that our residents expect and deserve. The Council and I continue to be aggressive in our grant applications. As of this writing, we have been awarded $548,033 for 2009. And, we have submitted applications for approximately $1,000,000 more. I do want to acknowledge and thank the Passaic County Freeholders for the grants that we have used to improve our parks (most recently, the award of $95,000 for Zaccaria Park). I would also like to thank Congressman Pascrell for securing the $147,000 grant for the Morris Canal improvements and the State Department of Transportation for its award of $281,000 for Newby Avenue improvements. Our prudent fiscal policies have resulted in the Financial Risk Rating Agency, Standard & Poor’s, improving our rating from A1 to AA. The new AA rating will translate to lower interest rates when we borrow to fund future capital improvement projects. This will save the taxpayers a tremendous amount of money. When compared to our sister Passaic Valley communities, our town maintains the lowest municipal budget by far. Please remember that the Borough receives approximately one-fourth of your tax dollars to provide for municipal services. The County receives one-fourth while the local and high schools receive the remaining half. A reminder to all seniors: the current deadline for filing for the Senior Property Tax Freeze Program was August 17, but it has been extended to November 2, 2009. Please take advantage of this valuable program. Rest assured that the Council and I will continue our efforts to maintain maximum services while holding the line on costs. |
|||||||
