The municipal tax rate will remain unchanged from last year’s rate of 34.7 cents per every $100 of assessed property value.
Mt. Laurel residents are looking at a municipal budget with no tax increase for 2018.
That was the news out of this week’s council meeting.
Should the budget remain unchanged from now until final adoption in late March, the municipal tax rate will remain unchanged from last year’s rate of 34.7 cents per every $100 of assessed property value.
Residents with an average assessed home valued at $237,700 would continue to pay about $824 in municipal taxes for the year.
Last year, municipal taxes constituted about 12 percent of a resident’s overall property tax bill.
Municipal taxes fund township services such as the police department, public works, trash removal and disposal, emergency medical services and the office of emergency management, animal control, the Mt. Laurel Community Center, snow removal, upkeep of parks and public lands and the township’s administrative services.
The remaining 88 percent of residents’ overall property tax bills last year was divided between the local K-8 school district (about 39 percent), the Lenape Regional High School District (about 24 percent), Burlington County (about 15 percent), with the rest split between the local fire district, open space funding and the Mt. Laurel Library.
Total appropriations for the 2018 budget are set at $38.6 million.
As several members of council also noted at this week’s meeting, appropriations for this year’s employee group health insurance are down about $500,000 from $3.7 million to $3.2 million. However, officials say that decrease stems from the township paying off a two-month deferral it owed to the state, which is why municipal taxes increased slightly last year.
With that deferral now paid off, officials said the township will have an easier time shopping for rates for health insurance plans in case there were ever savings to gain by switching to something new in years to come.
“Having a two-month deferral, what that does is locks you in there, so if they (the state health benefits plan) have a large increase, you can’t go out to market because you still owe them money,” Mayor Rich Van Noord said.
Although there was no increase for the state health benefits plan this year, acting township manager Meredith Tomczyk said the township was unable to know what might happen in the future.
A public hearing on the municipal budget is scheduled for council’s March 26 meeting to be held at 7 p.m. at the Mt. Laurel Municipal Center.
That meeting will mark one month from council’s introduction of the budget.
During the March meeting, residents will have a chance to comment on the budget before council votes for final adoption.
The introduced budget is on file with the township and also available to view on the township’s website at www.mountlaurel.com under the “Departments” tab for the township’s Finance Office.
