LAVALLETTE — The Lavallette Borough Council adopted the 2025 municipal budget, totaling $10,771,817, at its Monday, May 5, meeting.
A home assessed at the 2025 borough average of $905,220 will pay $2,534 in municipal purpose taxes this year. This figure amounts to $107 more in municipal purpose taxes in 2025 than 2024, for a total tax bill increase of 4.43%.
Homeowners in Lavallette can expect to pay 28 cents for every $100 dollars of assessed property value. The local tax rate is an increase of one cent in the 2025 fiscal year over 2024. This translates to a $292,476 increase in the total tax levy, from $6.56 million to $6.86 million year-over-year.
Borough Administrator John O. Bennett said Monday that the budget “provides for a one-cent increase” overall He explained some of the biggest expenses among the $10,770,000 total appropriation, which is down more than $2.1 million from last year’s total of roughly $12.93 million.
“The budget provides for a one-cent increase,” said Bennett. “The main increases are specifically the contractual salaries, to the degree of $140,000. Health insurance is an increase of $84,500, which we have no control over, and the pension system for both PERS (Public Employees Retirement System) and police and fire is another $56,000. Those three items alone represent a $280,000 increase in the budget.”
The main cause of the overall budget appropriation decrease in 2025 is a large decrease in miscellaneous revenues, which have been reduced to $1.8 million from $4.3 million in 2024.
The budget was adopted in a 4-0 vote. Councilman Jim Borowski was not present at Monday’s meeting. Councilman Robert Lamb died on May 2.
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