CAPE MAY POINT — Borough Commission plans to introduce its 2026 budget March 10, which could see the tax rate rise 3 cents to 39.5 cents and the tax levy nearly 10 percent.
The $2.9 million spending plan is up $457,000 (18.55 percent) from the previous year. CFO Jim Craft said that if a grant were left out, the current fund-adjusted budget would be up by $288,811, or 11.74 percent.
Craft went through the operating budget draft Feb. 24.
“This year’s budget anticipates $25,000 from delinquent taxes and the amount to be raised by taxation is $1,986,088, which is a 9.84 percent increase,” Craft said, adding it was under the limit on tax levy increases.
To normalize the budget, he adjusted the numbers by removing a Department of Transportation grant and three other items, thereby increasing appropriations more than the prior year.
The increase in appropriations includes money to purchase a new firetruck, $100,000 from surplus proceeds of a land sale, $50,000 from the water/sewer fund for its share of infrastructure repairs at Yale Avenue, and Public Works building appropriation funding.
We’re using more surplus this year to balance the budget,” Craft said. “That includes the $100,000 one-time-only [payment] for the firetruck, from the sale of the land.”
Craft noted that the end of 2025 saw a slightly lower surplus, at $579,963, compared to the 2024 surplus of $594,788.
The numbers for the firetruck and land sale are $191,000, generated from last year’s surplus, leaving the borough with a balance of $280,735. The borough used $254,000 of its $594,787 surplus in 2025 to balance the budget.
Deputy Mayor Elise Geiger asked Craft about the pros and cons of using proceeds from the land sale toward the buy the firetruck.
“I put the money toward the firetruck because of the limit in the bond, which we will issue in late May or early June,” Craft said. “We had the first payment of the firetruck in the last payment of bills, and we have the final payment coming up in June or July.”
Craft added that it was a good use of one-time revenue to pay for a one-time capital expenditure. The other option would be to leave the money in surplus, which was up to the commissioners.
Mayor Anita VanHeeswyk asked about the best avenue to keep the surplus as high as possible. Craft said keeping the money, or at least half, in surplus.
“That would bring the surplus almost to what it was last year if we reduced it to $50,000,” Craft said. “That does paint a better picture overall having the surplus about the same as last year.”
Craft said he would earmark the $100,000 in the fund balance as being from the sale of the land.
“As the borough, we sold an asset and I don’t think it should fall into our normal operating monies,” Geiger said. “We should keep it separate in a way to say that if we’re going to use it, we agree on how to use it.”
Craft said keeping all of it would bring the surplus to $387,802.
“I know we’ve been dipping that a little bit over time and I’d like to see that stay strong,” VanHeeswyk said.
Craft said the surplus balance is healthy with that adjustment and that raising the tax rate by 3 cents covers the borough’s operating costs.
This year, salaries and wages are increasing across various departments. In 2025, the largest spending increase was in salaries, wages and retirement benefits, which accounted for 34 percent of the budget.
Last year’s budget raised the tax rate 1.7-cent increase to 36.5 cents per $100 of assessed value.
Garage/Attic regulations
In other business, commissioners discussed code modification recommendations from the Planning Board regarding attics and garages.
“One has to do with clarifying the attic space wording and how you apply the floor area accounting into a potentially habitable attic space,” Geiger said. “My understanding is the reason for doing this is there are some concerns about minimizing the risk of future abuse, where people are designing spaces and there is potential for them to covert an attic into a living space.”
Geiger added that the Planning Board also requested providing more definition on what constitutes a garage and establishes consistent flooring area accounting of garages.
“There was not universal agreement on these, there was more agreement on the attics and less agreement with regards on garages at the Planning Board meeting,” she said. “There were several meetings on this and there is some complexity around the issue.”
For accessory buildings such as sheds, you cannot have any water, which restricts their use as habitable structures, Geiger explained.
“The discussion centered on can you remove the ability of people to abuse it by adding a new definition of garage,” Geiger said. “Then saying under certain circumstances, a garage is applied to your floor area ratio (FAR).”
The FAR determines a home’s living space.
“My feeling was that it was a little bit of an overreach, but there was a group of people at the Planning Board that thought it wasn’t that, and you can’t legislate, in essence, everything that people do in their accessories.”
Geiger added that, in her opinion, the current zoning addresses the situation.
For attics, Geiger said she was up in her attic for storage and thought about how changes would affect her attic.
“I don’t know if the new wording would allow me to put stuff up in my attic and not have to belly-crawl through the attic to access that,” she said. “I have to rethink the attic thing. It’s complex and takes a while to understand it.”
VanHeeswyk said she was up in the air on how she would vote on the matter.
“I think most people in town want things to be tightly controlled because of the scale of Cape May Point,” she said. “I don’t know if adding a floor area ratio on top of what we already have about setbacks and height is going to make much of a difference.”
On attics, VanHeeswyk said it has been a problem, and the topic was brought up by the zoning officer.
“Using the existing code, the zoning officer and prior zoning officer could not control the space above the attic, which has led to rooms created above garages,” VanHeeswyk said. “That really needs to be addressed.”
VanHeeswyk read what the Planning Board came up with: gross floor area ratio means a total of all floors within the horizontal and vertical perimeter of the outside walls of the main building, without deduction for attached garages beneath other gross floor area. Attached garages not located beneath other gross floor area, and detached garages will count 50 percent of their floor area toward gross floor area. She added it was a compromise and something the commissioners could seriously consider.
“I lean heavily toward agreeing with our zoning officer on what he needs to enforce what we mean, and I believe we mean and have always meant no living space above an attached garage,” VanHeeswyk said. “There shouldn’t be any space that can be converted and I think that’s what is important.”
Geiger said her concern with using FAR for an attached garage is that you cannot have more than 30 percent of your lot attributable to buildings, including a main house and shed.
“Not many people are going to have that much leftover space to put a garage in,” Geiger said. “But if somebody is really into a garage and says they will use less of my space on the area of my house so I can have a wood shop, I think we should allow that.”
VanHeeswyk said the FAR applies to the bulk, and an attached garage, whether off to the side or within the structure, counts as bulk.
“I guess the struggle always is how much do you limit people’s options for building or even adding on something on these small lots,” Geiger said. “That’s the fundamental question is how to protect ourselves from those who try to design around and try to abuse.”
VanHeeswyk said they have a responsibility to move forward and protect Cape May Point from what makes it look different from other towns.
“I’m a proponent of keeping our zoning tight, and if there are small things we need to do because our zoning officer is seeing areas that are being abused, it’s incumbent upon us to look at that,” VanHeeswyk said. “When you look at the structures here, they are different and if this a small tweaking of our ordinance to make sure it’s exactly what we meant and can be enforced. I’m in favor of it.”
VanHeeswyk said it would be best to mull over the suggestions before voting.
By RACHEL SHUBIN/Special to the Star and Wave
