POINT PLEASANT BEACH — The Point Pleasant Beach council unanimously approved the 2023 municipal budget totalling $17,710,490 at a meeting on Tuesday, May 2.
The tax rate this year is increasing to 0.464 from last year’s rate of 0.455.
This will result in an average annual municipal tax bill of $2,653, a $51.46 increase from last year on the house assessed at the borough’s average of $571,875.
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The budget also includes a total operating budget of $15,536,882, capital improvements equating to $45,000 and a debt service of $2,128,608.
The council members went through their regular reports on events and projects around the borough. The mayor also gave a report about looking into a shared service agreement.
Mayor Paul Kanitra said he attended a meeting on shared services projects that could help benefit Point Pleasant Beach. He said the state is giving out up to $400,000 for each shared service agreement that is created.
“We want to try and get the juices flowing for ways we can get some money as a town and try to do some things that aren’t intrusive to our identity as a town,” said Mayor Kanitra. “It seems like every couple of months we are buying new parts for the street sweeper and Bay Head and Point Borough are going to be collaborating to buy two new street sweepers so I think that is one potential initiative we can look at.”
One of the services he mentioned came from a Brielle councilman who is looking into purchasing a boat to help patrol the areas of Point Pleasant Borough, Point Pleasant Beach, Manaasquan and Brielle.
“They are thinking about a shared service in regards to having some boat patrols during the summer months in between Memorial Day and Labor Day,” said Mayor Kanitra. “We have a lot of people recreating in our waterways, we have the water taxi…all these places that have alcohol have people pulling up, eating, drinking and pulling away. Every summer we hear about some accident on the water. When I looked into it, the state police only have four boats for the whole state. So the concept of them being able to help us out seems to be a rare thing.”
According to Mayor Kanitra, the next step in this process is looking to see what kind of funding the borough can get for a boat and a first year of service. He suggested using Class I Officers and rotating them through the towns.
