Your Sewer Bill Has Turned Into a Property Tax

New Jersey caps municipal property tax levy increases at 2 percent a year. The cap covers the tax levy. It does not cover utility rates, and we've noticed.

They passed the largest municipal tax levy increase in the township's history. Then they raised sewer rates 21 percent.

A sewer rate is supposed to be a user fee. You pay what it costs to move and treat your wastewater, the utility covers its own expenses, and that is the end of it. Nobody objects to paying for the service they use.

That is not what is happening here. Before the 21 percent increase, close to 30 cents of every dollar collected on sewer bills was already being transferred out of the utility and into the general municipal budget. After the increase, it is roughly 42 cents.

So about 42 percent of your sewer bill has nothing to do with sewers. It is a property tax under a different name, on a different schedule, in an envelope the 2 percent cap never opens.

If it were an actual property tax, the state's exemptions would apply. They don't.

A disabled veteran with a full property tax exemption pays the sewer bill anyway. So does the church down the street. So does the senior on a fixed income who qualified for property tax relief. Trenton decided those people should be shielded from municipal tax increases. Aberdeen found the one bill where that protection doesn't reach, and raised it 21 percent.

Pull out your sewer bill and compare it to last year's. Then ask the Mayor and Council two questions at the next meeting: how much is being transferred out of the sewer utility this year, and what is it paying for?

If the township needs more revenue, there is an honest place to ask for it. It goes on the tax bill, it counts against the cap, the exemptions work the way the law intended, and every voter can see the number.