Bergen freeholders OK budget that trims taxes

Democratic Freeholder David Ganz said the new budget will translate to lower overall county property taxes for Bergen County residents.

“The tax rate is going to go down,” he said. “People will be paying less this year than they paid last year.”

He attributed that to a reduction in the county’s Open Space tax from one cent per $100 assessed property value to one-fourth of a cent.

According to a pamphlet distributed by Ganz, the average home assessed at $337,000 would be taxed at $640.74, down from $647.04 in 2009.

The budget passed on a 5-2 vote, with Republican Freeholders Robert Hermansen and John Driscoll voting against it.

Hermansen said he opposed the budget because county department heads refused to provide him with sufficient details about how money would be spent in the coming fiscal year.

“Each department head should have to go in and justify their expenses,” he said. “We’re just being told this is what they spent last year, and this is what they’re going to spend next year with nothing behind it.”

Hermansen also questioned why $32 million in proposed capital improvements were included on Wednesday’s meeting agenda, but not in the budget itself.

“They did that to make it look like they’re keeping the budget low,” he said. “There’s no explanation.”

County Administrator Timothy Dacey said the county was able to keep the budget down, in part, because county employees committed to give back a percentage of their pay to cover their health insurance costs. Dacey said that the state Policemen’s Benevolent Association is suing the county as a result of givebacks from law enforcement officials that were both agreed upon, as well as forced.

Dacey also said that Hermansen, a former Mahwah councilman, is comparing the Mahwah budget process with that of the county, and that the two are different.

“He does a budget differently because Mahwah does it differently,” Dacey said. “He asked for documents that we do not have.”

Democratic Freeholder Bernadette McPherson said that all of her questions about the budget were answered and described Hermansen’s contention that he did not receive budget information as a distortion.

“We are all entitled to our opinions,” she said. “What we cannot do and should not do is misrepresent the facts.”

Driscoll said that details on the budget were withheld from him as well.

“We need to know what line items were reduced, and we were not given that,” he said.

Source: Bergen County Freeholder Board

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