PARSIPPANY — Parsippany-Troy Hills Township Council passed the 2022 Township Budget on Tuesday, August 16, 4-1. Councilman Justin Musella voted no on the increased budget.
The Mayor presented the 2022 Township Budget at Tuesday, July 19 town council meeting, which includes a 3.3% tax increase. The introduction of the budget was approved unanimously.
“When I looked through this budget, it was disheartening,” Barberio said. “We have a financial crisis. Our budget challenges won’t be solved in one year.”
In this budget, Barberio hopes to increase the police force, saying that Soriano “let the police department become depleted.” The police department is down to 81 deployable officers. We should be at 103 to 109 deployable officers. I would like to increase it to 96 or 97 by the end of 2022.
That same meeting, the council voted unanimously to exceed the state-mandated 2% cap on annual property tax increases.
Councilman Justin Musella said “At the township council meeting last night, the Parsippany municipal budget was presented to the council for a vote. As this budget contained an unreasonable tax increase, I voted no. I understand the difficulties that the mayor faced in cleaning up the mess left by the previous administration, however, I did not feel that this budget went far enough to address those concerns. With inflation at levels unseen since the middle of last century, and a possible recession on the horizon, I don’t believe this is an appropriate time to saddle struggling taxpayers with another large tax increase.”
Councilman Paul Carifi said “The only way to reduce the budget was to layoff in excess of a 100 employees and take away many services that our seniors depend on and there’s NO WAY I was going to do that.”
“Your taxes aren’t going up that much,” Mayor James Barberio said. Barberio, along with the rest of the Council, have maintained that homeowners will still see their total tax bill go up by 3.3%.
Barberio said politics were behind criticisms of the budget, pointing to a statement published online by the Parsippany Democratic Committee. “They called me a liar,” Barberio said. “No one calls me a liar. I don’t care what party you are from.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, Parsippany residents voiced their concerns regarding the budget. Resident Bernie Clarkin had bantered with Barberio over the increase in legal fees this year, which will be $217k.
“I would anticipate that legal fees would go down,” Clarkin said.
Councilman Frank Neglia blamed the previous mayor, Michael Soriano, for the town’s financial crisis, citing his “foolish spending” on eye scans and appointing people to “positions that never existed.”
“In my opinion, Soriano was inexperienced and doesn’t know how to run a town like Mayor Barberio does,” Neglia said.
The Council and mayor will begin to “accept responsibility,” Neglia said. “Today is the start of cleaning up this mess,” he added. “The budget will start tonight. It’s ours now.”
The average residential assessment ($312,397.00) tax increase will be $478.00, or just under $40.00 per month, which includes municipal, school, county, open space, library and fire taxes.
The total 2022 budget is $241,553,717.41 as compared to the 2021 budget of $230,055,504.21. The 2022 budget includes an increase in school taxes of $2,643,143.11. (2021 School Tax was $146,841,284.00 and 2022 School Tax is $149,484,427.11).
