Includes tax hike of 4.6 percent
The vote comes a week after Newark Mayor Cory Booker said the city will receive a $32 million loan from the state of New Jersey to fill its then-$57 million deficit. In exchange, the state will oversee Newark's finances for the next year.
"The municipal council's adoption of the 2011 budget will help the city meet its fiscal obligations, while limiting the impact on the delivery of essential services to the public," said Julien Neals, the city's business administrator. "The city will begin the process of preparing the 2012 budget as we work towards our ultimate goal of eliminating any structural deficit by 2013."
Last week, Booker said the state loan filled only a percentage of the city's deficit, leaving $25 million. On Friday, however, city officials said they whittled the $57 million down to $32 million by Thursday through "additional departmental budget cuts." But when asked what those cuts were, officials declined to elaborate.
Newark Councilman Ronald C. Rice said the city chipped away the $25 million by cutting future spending. He said the adopted budget calls for no layoffs or furloughs of city employees.
In the past 18 months, the mayor said officials reduced city payroll to the lowest number since 1988 and decreased the city's structural deficit by more than $100 million.
Council members Carlos Gonzalez, Anibal Ramos, Rice and Darrin Sharif and Council President Donald Payne voted to adopt the budget, according to officials. Council members Augusto Amador and Luis Quintana voted no. Council members Ras Baraka and Mildred Crump were absent.
The budget's tax increase means Newark residents will pay an average of $260 more on a property valued at roughly $175,000.
While the budget still calls for a tax hike, Rice said it's less than the 7 percent originally introduced by Booker in July, "Obviously, no one likes to have a tax increase, but, when you compare our budget to other cities around the country and in New Jersey, it's not a bad budget."
