The Harrison Township Committee presented its 2025 municipal budget to the public during a May 5 meeting and eventually voted to adopt it.
The total budget is $14,590,331, compared with last year’s $14,676,306, a 0.5% decrease. It’s the first time the budget number has gone down in several years, according to Mayor Adam Wingate, and also means a tax decrease for residents that may be the township’s first.
“As we approached this year’s budget,” he explained, “our priority was pretty clear. It was to put our residents and taxpayers first. We recognized over the last several years that families have been facing significant financial pressure: rising costs at the grocery store, increase in utility bills and just overall economic uncertainty.
“With that in mind, our committee made it a top goal to bring meaningful relief wherever it was possible,” Wingate added. “We’re proud to share that for the first time in recent memory – perhaps ever in Harrison Township – we were able to deliver a tax decrease for our residents.”
The budget presentation outlined the challenges faced by the committee when crafting the 2025 financial plan, including basic supply and service cost increases and material cost increases, among others.
“This wasn’t easy,” Wingate emphasized. “It took careful planning, responsible spending and a clear focus on the needs of our community.”
The budget’s impact on the tax rate was clear at the meeting. While there is a 1.7-cent operating cost increase, a 2-cent open space decrease offsets that, resulting in a decrease of 65.3 cents per $100 of assessed home value. The combined rate for property taxes will be $2,279 for the year, an $11 decrease from 2024’s total of $2,290.
“It’s not a lot,” the mayor acknowledged, “but we want to provide the maximum relief we could to all the residents in town.”
Committee members credited township officials, as well as Township Administrator Dennis Chambers and CFO Shawn Glynn for their work on crafting the budget.
“I’ve been doing this now for three years, and this process always makes your head spin,” observed Deputy Mayor Lawrence Moore. “A lot of this does not happen without Dennis and Shawn and a lot of our department heads, who contribute a lot to this process.
“To see we were able to hold the line and give our residents a break during a time where it is pretty tough, and it’s hard obviously, a lot of things are out of our scope. But however we can help.”
The next committee meeting is scheduled for Monday.
