Despite losing significant state aid, tax cutting Fair Haven Mayor introduces budget which cuts municipal property tax rate
(Fair Haven, NJ) Despite losing nearly $140,000 in state municipal aid, 12th District Republican congressional candidate Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre tonight introduced a municipal budget that cut property tax rates for the third consecutive year, a feat Halfacre attributed to the use of “traditional Republican values”.
“I am happy to announce that for the third consecutive year, Fair Haven taxpayers will pay less on the municipal portion of their property taxes than they did the year before,” said Halfacre. “In this economy, it is crucial that we give relief to homeowners who may be struggling from spiraling property taxes and give our businesses one less spiraling cost to deal with. I’d like to thank the council and the people at Borough Hall for their work on this budget and over the past few years. It has truly been a team effort.”
Fair Haven’s anticipated municipal tax rate for FY 2010 will be 46.5 cents per 100 dollars of assessed property value. The rate was 47 cents in FY 2009, 48.1 cents in FY 2008, and 49.1 cents in FY 2007, Halfacre’s first year in office.
Halfacre also pointed out that this was not the first year Fair Haven had lost municipal aid, saying that the Borough had lost a total of $283,000, or roughly 40% of its aid, over the last three years.
Halfacre credited “traditional Republican values” as the catalyst for the turnaround in the Borough. “When I took office in 2007, quite frankly, the Borough’s finances were a mess. The council and I very quickly set about a complete reorganization of Borough Hall, deciding what the functions of municipal government were and what could be outsourced. We fired the CFO and hired an outstanding new one, we consolidated positions, outsourced non-core functions and shared services where possible.”
Halfacre continued “We applied what I like to think of as traditional Republican values; we decided get government out of as many functions as possible, and the ones we had to be in, we set about to run as efficiently as possible while maintaining services to residents. This budget is the fruit of those efforts- even with the loss of significant state aid, we are able to lower taxes and keep our borrowing to a manageable level.”
Halfacre concluded by praising Governor Chris Christie. “The Governor is doing what the people elected him to do and what we started doing 4 years ago in Fair Haven: making tough decisions which will pay off down the road. I applaud him for his efforts.”
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15 comments:
How much of the tax reduction was moved and scheduled to be paid in the future? BS he lowered taxes.
Halfacre hasn't done a thing but announce. It is his selfless Republican finance committee that has done all the heavy lifting. Halfacre doesn't even have a vote.
Kudos to Mike.
As the head of the administration he deserve credit for a job well done.
Im still voting for Sip though.
Did Bellyacre lower taxes or the tax rate? If rate went down taxes can and usually will still go up. Will residents be paying more in municipal taxes in 2010 then they did in 2009? If the answer is affirmative then town is spending more and taxes aren't going down.
Poor Sipprelle trolls..another bomb drops on their heads.
Cant wait to see the media reaction to this one..I bet Halfacre will be on TV and radio more than Sipprelle and his stupid TV commercial over the next few days.
I like Mike
The rate, levy and budget all went down.
I'm afraid that Sipprelle's drones can't understand this concept. A town is not like a hedge fund, that you can just close and walk away from it when prospects are not looking too good anymore.
Can we stop with the lies.
halfacre lowered the portion of taxes that the town collects.
Sipperelle did not walk away from a failed hedge fund.
There is enough legit stuff to talk about withou both sides making Sh-t up
"Did Bellyacre lower taxes or the tax rate? If rate went down taxes can and usually will still go up. Will residents be paying more in municipal taxes in 2010 then they did in 2009? If the answer is affirmative then town is spending more and taxes aren't going down."
Seriously, if you have to work this hard to discredit something, you really ought to give up.
I wonder if Halfacre is going to call Sipprelle a liar for questioning his "tax cutting mayor" credentials?
Wow. That is a pretty high muni tax rate for a little town with full build out. The only way to evaluate whether there is anything to crow about or to attack is to get into the details. The claim of "cuts" is meaningless without knowing the details. As it stands the statement is meaningless political rhetoric for the ignorant. Maybe we can get the prior budgets, debt, and other info posted here since this is the Halfacre campaign site.
"Sipperelle did not walk away from a failed hedge fund."
Which "Sipperelle" are you talking about? I assume you meant Scott, and in that case nobody said "failed" hedge fund. Maybe he was just a visionary who forecasted the economic downturn, and closed it right on time. Unfortunately, running a town, county, state or country is a bit different, you don't just walk away during a recession, when the ROI isn't as promising anymore. Same go for national defense, you don't cut&run when the same ROI isn't worth anymore (and don't pretend you don't know what it is about, there is video footage of Scott saying that troops should be pulled out when they become too expensive - meaning that foreign policy should be dictated by financial and not security factors).
Halfacre walks away from everything...he is unstable
Halfacre is fortunate to have a council president who has no political agenda but does have a phD in finance that for years has accomplished this feat along with the fully GOP council. Halfacre has done nothing....doesn't even vote, unless there is a tie (and when there was, he flipped a coin)...and has NO experience dealing with any political opposition in public service. Yet he takes the credit for this small portion of the tax bill. Despicable manipulation of the public, imo. His councilmen and administration are the ones who deserve the kudos here.
7:34: maybe, but Curley's going down as the most unstable ever, if this recent behavior keeps up..
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