USA: Money Secured for Avalon Dredg­ing

The 2014 munic­i­pal bud­get for the Bor­ough of Avalon was approved by a unan­i­mous 5–0 vote by the Avalon Bor­ough Coun­cil dur­ing its meet­ing on Wednes­day, March 26th.

The new bud­get totals $24.8 mil­lion and sets the local pur­pose tax rate at 22.4 cents, which rep­re­sents a half cent increase from 2013.

The bud­get main­tains over $3 mil­lion in sur­plus for the Borough.

“ This bud­get rep­re­sents a tremen­dous effort by the Avalon Bor­ough Coun­cil to keep the munic­i­pal tax rate as one of the low­est in the State of New Jer­sey while also fund­ing essen­tial cap­i­tal projects ”, said Avalon Mayor Mar­tin Pagli­ughi.

“ The Bor­ough has been able to increase its rat­able base by $42 mil­lion and gen­er­ate over $2.8 mil­lion in sur­plus fund­ing over the past twelve months ”.

Under the 2014 munic­i­pal bud­get, the Bor­ough has sched­uled many cap­i­tal projects through the com­mu­nity.

The larger projects include: $650,000 for paving along Fourth Avenue and a redesign of the 28th Street Park­ing Lot; $350,000 sand back pass­ing project cur­rently under­way to add sand to the north end beaches; $750,000 for back bay dredg­ing and wet­lands restora­tion, and $490,000 for improve­ments at the 39th Street Play­ground.

The play­ground project is reim­bursable by fund­ing com­mit­ted by the Cape May County Open Space Fund. Coun­cil also intro­duced an ordi­nance to pro­vide addi­tional fund­ing for the back bay dredg­ing initiative.

The new bud­get includes no increase in the water and sewer util­ity fund rev­enues.

Avalon is allo­cat­ing $5.8 mil­lion in water and sewer util­ity fund appro­pri­a­tions; charges from the Cape May County Munic­i­pal Util­i­ties Author­ity rep­re­sent 68% of the total water and sewer util­ity fund budget.

[mappress]

Press Release, March 28, 2014