Next month, on August 8, there will be a municipal budget hearing at the Township Council meeting; the budget was first introduced at a meeting earlier this month.Details are fairly standard – growth of 1.37 percent over the previous year and an increase of $53.77 in taxes on the average assessed home of $705,000 – and in broad strokes we agree with township officials who say it is a “good, responsible budget.”But why is it taking until August of 2022 to pass the 2022 budget?We obviously understand why the budget was delayed in 2020, when the township was faced with once-in-a-lifetime challenges without clear answers or directives. We also know why it was pushed back in 2021, as we waited to see how much federal relief funding the township would receive. But is this just the norm now?Prior to the pandemic, the municipal budget was introduced sometime in March and typically passed by mid-April. We believe that it would be advantageous for the township to gradually make it back to that schedule. As things currently stand, we are passing budgets for years that are nearly two-thirds completed already. This cannot be the most productive way to plan for the year’s expenses.We know that putting together a budget is a challenging and time-consuming task, and it may be hard to return to that previous spring schedule in one year. But it is a worthwhile effort to inch our way back there over time.
