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# The municipal budget added $68 to the average home, and the full tax bill added about $460
- URL: https://blog.johnmangini.com/budget-2025-adopted/
- Published: 2025-05-16T13:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-20T21:28:03.000Z
- Description: Resolution 2025-124 adopted the 2025 municipal budget 5-0 on May 15. Total appropriations are $25,492,525.75 and the amount to be raised by taxation is $15,812,533.05, up 3.5 percent. The municipal share of the average home's increase is a small fraction of the whole.
- Author: John Mangini
- Tags: Warren Tracked, Township, municipal budget, property taxes, ordinances, township committee

The short answer

On May 15, 2025 the Warren Township Committee adopted the 2025 municipal budget 5-0 by Resolution 2025-124, after a public hearing. Total appropriations are $25,492,525.75 and the amount to be raised by taxation is $15,812,533.05, an increase of 3.5 percent over 2024\. Committeeman Fine said the municipal portion of the increase on the average home would be $68\. Asked about the total bill, Administrator Krane estimated the all in increase on the average home at approximately $460.00, of which $68.00 is municipal.

The number most residents care about is the second one. Warren's municipal budget went up 3.5 percent and the municipal share of that lands as roughly $68 on an average assessed home. The bill that arrives in the mail goes up by something closer to $460\. The gap between those two figures is the most useful thing in the May 15 minutes.

## The budget itself

| Line                                                     | Amount         |
| -------------------------------------------------------- | -------------- |
| Total Appropriations                                     | $25,492,525.75 |
| Within CAPS, Operations Including Contingent             | $18,418,970.00 |
| Within CAPS, Deferred Charges and Statutory Expenditures | $3,059,642.00  |
| Excluded from CAPS, Operations                           | $373,627.67    |
| Excluded from CAPS, Capital Improvements                 | $910,000.00    |
| Excluded from CAPS, Municipal Debt Service               | $1,780,286.08  |
| Excluded from CAPS, Deferred Charges                     | $25,000.00     |
| Reserve for Uncollected Taxes                            | $925,000.00    |
| Amount to be raised by taxation                          | $15,812,533.05 |

Committeewoman Kian reported the 3.5 percent increase in the amount to be raised by taxation and said the original proposed budget had been much higher.

$25.49M

total appropriations

3.5%

increase in tax levy

$68

municipal increase, average home

\~$460

all in increase, average home

## The exchange that explains your tax bill

Rick de Pinho of Wilshire Road asked what the total bill would do, not just the municipal piece. Administrator Krane estimated the all in increase on the average home at approximately $460.00, of which the municipal portion is $68.00.

That is the whole civics lesson in one answer. Municipal taxes are a minority of a New Jersey property tax bill. The school and county portions carry the rest. A township can hold its own line and residents will still see a materially larger number on the bill, because most of the bill is not the township's to set.

The May bill list, Resolution 2025-125, makes the same point concretely. It totaled $13,769,096.07 and included these three payments:

| Payee                              | Amount        |
| ---------------------------------- | ------------- |
| Warren Township Board of Education | $3,854,159.00 |
| Watchung Hills Regional            | $1,639,679.00 |
| Somerset County                    | $4,833,530.39 |

The township collects those dollars and passes them through. It does not decide them. Watchung Hills Regional High School is a regional district whose constituent member municipalities are Warren Township, Watchung Borough and Long Hill Township, and each of those three levies for it.

## A discrepancy in the official record

The average home municipal increase appears as $66 in the April introduction minutes and as $68 at adoption in May.

At introduction on April 17, Krane said the average house paid $2,443 in municipal taxes in 2024 and would pay $2,509 in 2025, an increase of $66\. At adoption on May 15, Fine said the increase on the average home would be $68.

Both figures are in the official record. The minutes do not reconcile them. I am reporting both rather than picking one. If you need the operative number for any purpose that matters, go to the adopted budget document itself rather than to either set of minutes.

## What happened at introduction

Resolution 2025-100, introducing the budget, passed 4-0 on April 17 with Fine absent.

Krane reported that the budget as introduced was $1,016,563.36 over 2024, an increase of 4.15 percent, with the tax increase at $545,448 or 3.5 percent. He attributed the increases to health insurance, debt service, and additional police staffing and technology.

Mayor Lontai noted that at the March budget discussion the increase had been above 6 percent, before the finance liaisons and Krane brought it down to 3.5 percent.

## Ratables and assessments

Two figures for the same period give the tax rate context:

|                       | 2024           | 2025           | Change   |
| --------------------- | -------------- | -------------- | -------- |
| Assessed ratables     | $5,581,396,100 | $6,107,636,600 | up 9.43% |
| Average assessed home | $891,628       | $969,669       | up 8.75% |

Assessed value moving is not the same as a tax increase. When the base rises, the rate can fall and still produce more revenue. What determines your bill is the levy divided across the base, applied to your own assessment. If your assessment moved differently from the township average, your experience of this budget will differ from the average home figures above. This is describing the township's own reported figures, not any individual property.

## Six ordinances adopted, one introduced

Ordinances 25-07 through 25-12 were all adopted on second reading, each 5-0.

The six cover, in the order the minutes list them:

- $30,000 for a Town Hall server room
- $60,000 for police locker rooms and restrooms
- $36,000 for police tactical shields
- $15,000 for police mobile data terminals
- $524,155 appropriating the New Jersey Historic Trust grant for the Mount Bethel Meeting House
- the CY2025 Cap Bank

I have not matched each item to a specific ordinance number, because the record I worked from gives the range and the list without pairing them one to one.

Ordinance 25-13 was introduced 5-0\. It is a bond ordinance appropriating $150,000 for a Maxwell Court Drainage Improvements engineering feasibility study, with $140,000 in bonds or notes. Croson cited increasing stormwater problems townwide. Fine said Maxwell Court was prioritized because of potential structural issues.

That is a feasibility study, not a construction project. The $150,000 buys engineering work that tells the township what a fix would cost.

What I could not verify

The 2024 total appropriations figure is not in the record I worked from, so I cannot show a year over year comparison of total appropriations. The 4.15 percent and $1,016,563.36 figures Krane reported at introduction describe the budget as introduced in April, not as adopted in May.

Sources

1. Township of Warren, Township Committee Minutes and Resolutions 2025-122 through 2025-125, May 15, 2025\. [https://www.warrennj.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/\_05152025-873](https://www.warrennj.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/%5F05152025-873?ref=blog.johnmangini.com)
2. Township of Warren, Township Committee Minutes, April 17, 2025\. [https://www.warrennj.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/\_04172025-862](https://www.warrennj.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/%5F04172025-862?ref=blog.johnmangini.com)
3. Township of Warren, 2025 Adopted Ordinances. [https://www.warrennj.org/589/2025-Adopted-Ordinances](https://www.warrennj.org/589/2025-Adopted-Ordinances?ref=blog.johnmangini.com)

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John Mangini

Broker / Owner, NextHome Premier

Warren Township resident and full time broker, serving clients since 1999\. Warren, Tracked. is written from live Garden State MLS data, township records and primary sources. Every figure is traceable to a source listed above.

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