Cranford Loses $750K in State Aid

The state Department of Community Affairs announced Thursday afternoon that Cranford will lose close to $750,000 in state aid this year.

These reductions are relatively close to what the municipalities had been expecting. The township was anticipating a 15 to 20 percent drop in state aid. The actual drop, from $3,646,401 last year to $2,900,712 this year, is 20.44 percent. The aid this year will include $176,502 in consolidated municipal property tax relief and $2,724,210  in total energy tax receipts.

"The budget that the governor outlined is not a surprise," said Mayor Mark Smith. "Taxes cannot continue to increase, and spending must be reduced. The strategy is to force reductions in spending at the local level. The changes in education funding and municipal funding will do that, but the cuts will be painful. It will be virtually impossible to maintain the current levels of spending given the restrictions imposed by levy caps."

The total state aid distributed to municipalities across New Jersey for fiscal year 2011 is nearly $1.5 billion. The budget for state aid this year has been reduced almost $359 million from last year's total aid appropriation.

Other municipalities in Union County lost about the same percentage as Cranford. Westfield suffered one of the higher reductions amongst county municipalities similar to Cranford — the town lost $941,470, a 23.45 percent decrease from the year before.

According to a DCA release accompanying the numbers: "this budget and the changes in state policy it represents require that municipal officials immediately and actively examine a wide range of actions to control and reduce costs and take actions such as:

• Considering not only how services are provided, but the need for them;
• Sharing services with neighboring governments, schools, and county agencies;
• Reviewing all employee contracts and benefits policies for consistency with the economy and government financial conditions; and,
• Taking advantage of all opportunities to reduce costs before exercising their local authority to increase property taxes."

"I believe that this is the first in a series of difficult but necessary steps required to put New Jersey back on the road to fiscal health," said Smith. "The Township Committee will do everything it can to preserve services and keep taxes under control."

This story is developing. Check Cranford Patch again for more updates.