The Lakewood Board of Fire Commissioners has been quite busy lately.
At their last public meeting, the Commissioners introduced their annual budget, gave themselves some pretty cool salary increases, hired additional personnel and approved buying several shiny toys.
The Fiscal Year 2025 total budget reflects total revenues of $14,473,139.00, of which $14,305,812.00 will be raised by taxation.
The Fiscal Year 2024 total budget reflected total revenues of $12,374,592, of which $12,307,265 was raised by taxation.
Accordingly, the total budget will increase $2,098,547. The amount to be raised by taxation will be increased by $1,998,547.
The 2024 tax rate was 0.1106. The 2025 tax rate will increase 0.0135 to 0.1241. The tax rate is the amount of money you pay in taxes per $100 of your property's assessed value.
The total assessed value of all property in Lakewood is $11,526,602,000.00. This number x 0.0012411127 = $14,304,513.082 which is the total amount to be raised by taxation.
A typical new duplex, such as in Oak and Vine, assessed at $560,000, will pay $695.02 in 2025, a $75.56 increase over the 2024 tax of $619.46.
The budget includes a salary of $250,000 for Chief Jonathan Yahr, $195,000 for Administrator Yehuda Beer, $122,424 for Deputy Administrator Steven Mulholland, $68,750 for Clerk Erin Belfiglio, and $56,100 for Fire Prevention Specialist Sima Clapman.
The Fire Commissioners hired 9 new firefighters and approved hiring 4 additional firefighters later in the year. At that point the career department will grow to a total of 53 firefighters.
The Fire Commissioners also approved spending $1,360,000 for building upgrades, rescue trailer & equipment, firehouse alerting system, and a self-contained breathing apparatus fill station.
They were planning to also spend another $250,000 for yet a new chief’s vehicle. Luckily, that item got scrapped at the last second.
Coolest part.... the budget increases the Commissioners' own salaries from $10,000 to $15,000.
The budget was approved for introduction by all the Commissioners except for Larry Loigman who highlighted that the budget was not separately reviewed by the Budget Committee.
Commissioner Dovid Bender joined Mr. Loigman is voting against the salary increase.
The budget is expected to be approved on final reading at the Board's next meeting next Monday, January 13, 2025.
Lakewood's fire tax continues to grow each year as Township officials continue to approve additional housing and provide tax abatements to their buddies.
As shown below, fire taxes have nearly doubled over 5 years.
New duplex
2020 - $375.20
2021 - $436.80
2022 - $459.20
2023 - $560
2024 - $619.46
2025 - $695.02
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5 comments:
That is a geat headsup column. FAA is the only truth seeking publication that really reports the news.
Does Loigman even live in Lakewood anymore?
Yes he does.
Yes
GENUG SHOIN!!
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