By DEBORAH HIRSCH • Courier-Post Staff • August 7, 2010

GLOUCESTER TWP. — Mayor Dave Mayer plans to introduce a $25.3 million spending plan Monday night that will cover the six-month transition period until the township reverts to a calendar year budget Jan. 1.

Mayer said the move aligns the township with labor contracts, allows for better long-term financial planning and could even help leverage state aid. And at least for this short budget cycle, taxpayers won't face any increases.

"It makes sense," Mayer said. "We had to get control of our finances. Residents in our town have seen very large tax increases . . . over the last several years and we just can't continue down that road anymore."

The township ran on a calendar year until 1991, when the state required all municipalities with populations of 35,000 or more to switch to its July 1 to June 30 fiscal year schedule.

The logic was this would expedite budgets for larger municipalities, but the opposite seemed to occur, said Business Administrator Tom Cardis. Municipalities that relied on state aid often waited months for the amounts to be announced before they could officially approve their budgets.

"We were nine months into a budget before we were adopting it," Cardis said. "Quite frankly it was a little cumbersome. We didn't go to a fiscal year willingly."

In 2008, the legislature revised the law, giving municipalities the option to petition the state to convert back to a calendar year. Making the switch was among Mayer's top priorities when he took office in January.

The state's Local Finance Board, which oversees municipal finances, has so far approved 18 municipalities to change back.

Mayer said he hopes the calendar year schedule will put the township in a position to get more aid because it will apply at the beginning of the year along with about 500 other mostly smaller municipalities instead of having to wait until mid-year. By then, Mayer said, "there's a smaller chunk of state aid left over" and bigger municipalities such as Camden and Cherry Hill are competing for it.

Getting the aid earlier would also eliminate the need to send out multiple tax bill estimates. Each mailing can cost $30,000, Cardis said.

The transition comes with a boost in state aid, a perk Cardis credited for helping stave off a tax increase.

By law, the transition budget can use up the $4.93 million in state aid that was originally intended to cover the entire 2011 fiscal year. That will allow the township to plug shortfalls and even build up a surplus of more than $200,000 by the end of this year, Cardis said.

The township would be eligible to apply for state aid again for the calendar year. Cardis anticipates receiving another $5 million or more.

Despite the additional aid, Cardis worried the township could be facing the same litany of problems as other municipalities operating on fiscal years come January. The township will need to make about $2.6 million in pension payments in the spring.

"All this is is a brief reprieve," Cardis said. "We still have to be very conscientious. Everything we do that generates revenue we're seeing a decline in so we've got to think outside the box."

In an effort to cut costs further, the township is attempting to negotiate a trash disposal contract with Cherry Hill, privatize construction inspections and sell property to the housing authority.

A public hearing on the budget will be held in September. A full calendar year budget will be introduced sometime in February, Cardis said.