SEA ISLE CITY –– Chief Financial Officer James Terruso said the city will be facing some tough decisions in its capital budget plan over the next month.

City departments have requested over $34.3 million for capital improvement projects, but only $10.5 million in funding is available over the next two and a half years, Terruso said.

“If the city spends more than $3 million for water/sewer projects or $7.5 million for general capital improvements, utility user fees and local taxes could go up,” he explained.

Raising taxes or increasing fees in this community could prove very difficult because it has a very active taxpayers association.

City Council met with Terruso Nov. 7 to begin preliminary discussion on the capital plan.

“It was a really good exercise in long term planning,” Terruso said of the work session with council. “They should be commended for putting the time into the process.”

Needs were identified by seven of the city’s nine departments: police, $905,625; finance, $619,000; administration, $16.3 million; community service, $347,460; public works, $14.1 million; municipal clerk, $6,000; and legal, $50,000.

Only the community development department, which includes the land use boards, and municipal court had no capital funding requests.

He described it as a six to ten year plan and said council members seemed to understand that not everything could be done right away.

“Officials need to set priorities,” Terruso said. “There are projects out there that need to be addressed right away and others will have to wait.”

He pointed to several multimillion-dollar water and sewer projects that are on the top of the “to do” list.

Terruso said more talks would be scheduled to build on the preliminary discussion. He said final changes to the budget proposal would need to be done by the end of December so it could be presented by Jan. 15 and introduced by Feb. 12.

Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com