The Township of Franklin has extended the property tax grace period. Normally taxes are due May 1st but people have until May 10th to pay. This quarter we extended the grace period until June 1st. We did so after the Governor’s order allowed us to do it.
The background story is, weeks ago the Assembly voted to extend the grace period, but the Senate never took it up. Our council and I, as well as the governing body of other towns, then started coming up with work arounds like very, very low interest penalties if you are late. But then the State Division of Local Government Services in the Department of Community Affairs fired back with a strong letter making it difficult to do so.
Finally, yesterday at about noon the Governor released an order allowing towns to pass a resolution allowing for an extended grace period. Franklin passed it last night.
Many towns are not doing it, and here’s why. They don’t have the money. When you pay taxes, you pay it all to the town and the town then pays the School Board, County, Fire departments and Library. If you don’t pay the town, the town still must pay the others. If the town doesn’t, then teachers may not get paid. If you do pay and you don’t have much money in the bank, then the police don’t get paid.
In Franklin, the school budget is 3 times the town budget so if you don’t pay, that’s a lot of money for us to come up with out of thin air. We pay those bills roughly every 2 weeks, so a 3 week extension is a lot. Franklin has the money in our fund balance to make the payments. Many do not.
Even though we have not raised taxes 3 years in a row we have kept the town fiscally sound to the point we are able to absorb this kind of a blow. This is a reason why we have resisted cutting to the bare bones. We have a rainy day fund not only to allow a grace period but to do the other thing we did last night, paid the Food Bank $25,000 to feed our citizens.
One for all. PK