Budget Subcommittee Request Update
On May 11, Mayor Dave Mayer and his administration introduced a 10.5% increase in municipal taxes. On May 27, Council appointed a Budget Subcommittee to review the budget. That same night, a GT Citizens budgets was released which called for a significantly less tax increase (3.8%). The Citizens budget was emailed to the Budget Subcommittee and we requested to be a part of the meeting.
Yesterday Council Vice President Tracey Trotto emailed me and said “the subcommittee will remain between Michael, Andrea and myself.” What does this mean? Well for starters, it means that the Budget Subcommittee has no desire to allow the public into their meeting.
That really is inconsequential to the bigger picture here. This really means that Gloucester Township should get ready for a double digit tax increase. Oh don’t get me wrong, council will come back with “We are citizens too, and this budget affects us as well. We are not happy about it, and some hard decisions were made.” They will then proceed to make a cut of about 175K, which is like peeing in the ocean. If this sound familiar, it should because that is exactly what was said and done (75K reduction) in 2018.
