The Trenton Times published the following email on March 20, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Trenton taxes to increase less than expected under revised $200M budget

By Erin Duffy/The Times of Trenton 
on March 20, 2013 at 1:14 PM, updated March 20, 2013 at 1:15 PM

TRENTON — The city’s tax rate will go up this year, but the tax hike will not be as large as originally projected, city officials said at a budget presentation last night.

Last summer officials had braced themselves to fill a $7 million budget hole with a double-digit tax hike. But business administrator Sam Hutchinson said last night that the tax rate for fiscal year 2013 will increase by only 6 cents per $100 of assessed value, not the 19 cents previously anticipated.

“Council has worked with us and consistently urged us, ‘Take it down, take it down,'” Hutchinson said.

With the receipt of grants and a $24.5 million transitional aid award from the state, the proposed budget is now $199.7 million. It depends on a tax levy of $74.3 million, an increase of $1.4 million over last year.

Council must adopt the budget at its next meeting on April 2 if May tax bills are to be printed on time, budget officer Elana Chan said.

If council approves the budget, the tax rate will come to $3.75 per $100 of assessed home value, up 6 cents from last year but down 13 cents from the $3.88 tax rate Hutchinson proposed when the budget was introduced in September.

When Hutchinson first predicted the hike last summer, council members and residents were aghast, saying they could not afford another year of steep tax increases.

For a property assessed at $100,000, the new rate translates to a tax bill of $3,750, a $60 increase. The increase will be due in the May tax bills, Hutchinson and Chan said.

Hutchinson reminded council that the state requires the city to impose a tax increase of at least 6 percent to remain eligible for transitional aid, a special pool of state aid given to struggling cities.

“There has to be some tax increase and I think ours is relatively small based on where we started out,” he said.

Council members voted to approve amendments to the general budget, the sewer and capital budgets, and the municipal utility fund. Council members Phyllis Holly-Ward and George Muschal voted against the general budget amendments.