Brigantine Cuts Taxes Five Straight Years

Brigantine- Brigantine homeowners will see a more than $259,000 cut to their local taxes. Council members unanimously voted to approve the 2020 budget at the April 29th special budget meeting. This is the fifth consecutive tax cut in Brigantine, with a total return to taxpayers of more than $1.8 million.

Brigantine’s budget totals $31,145,979.04 and is a reduction of over $259,00 from the 2019 adopted budget. The local purpose tax rate is 63.5 cents per $100 of assessed value. One cent of the budget represents $332,288 so a homeowner whose property is accessed at $400,000 will pay $50.90 less in property taxes from 2019 due to the 1.3 cent decrease. 

“These are unprecedented time” said Deputy Mayor Vince Sera. “It’s very hard to anticipate the economic challenges the City is going to face in 2020. We have had a lot of conversations about the budget and what we can do to put Brigantine in the best financial position.”

The Republican members of council have received some criticism, over the last few years, about keeping a more than $6 million fund balance in the City’s budget. “Six years ago, we made a financial decision to build up and maintain a strong reserve fund for the City. We saw what happened to the budget after Superstorm Sandy and we wanted to make sure the City would be protected if we had another catastrophic event.”

The City uses over 2.8 million of the fund balance in the 2020 budget which is equal to the amount used in both 2018 and 2019. 

“I give a lot of credit to Mayor Simpson and our financial team for their foresight in building up the City’s reserve fund. Having this emergency fund may be the very thing that helps protect our Brigantine taxpayers this year and next.” said Sera 

Brigantine’s local purpose tax is $21,109,370.65 and is more than $611,000 lower than it was in 2012.

Brigantine’s budget is in compliance with all New Jersey spending CAPS and tax levy CAP laws and is more than $1.2 million under the 2% tax levy CAP.

To see Brigantine’s 2020 budget, go to http://bb-nj.org