Monmouth Freeholders’ 2019 Budget Is $44 million Less Than 2010

The Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders recently adopted their final budget of the decade.  In the ten years since the 2010 budget, annual spending for county government as declined by $43.8 million, 8.9%, according to an announcement by Freeholder Director Tom Arnone.

2010 was the year Arnone was first elected to the Freeholder Board and the year the GOP took back control of county government after two years of Democrat control.

“The Board has taken a hard line approach to ensure that each County department is being fiscally responsible. We are currently using a similar amount of fund balance as the revenue that we regenerated during the year and work to ensure future financial stability with all bond rating agencies,” said Freeholder Director Arnone. “It is important to note that even though department spending has gone down, we have kept the quality of services at the level our residents have come to expect.”

The 2019 budget of $449,600,000 is up .37% over the 2018 budget and is funded by a tax levy of $305,500,000, an increase of .49% over 2018.  Spending on County operations  declines by $1.5 million this year, according to the announcement.  The modest increases are to replenish the surplus and shore up the County’s AAA balance sheet.

The annual budget covers the cost of maintaining 1,000 lane miles of roads, more than 900 bridges, 16,000 acres of County parks, emergency management services, 911 emergency communications, law enforcement through the Prosecutor’s and Sheriff’s offices, elections, deed recording and passport services in the County Clerk’s Office, probates and adoptions through the Surrogate’s office as well as numerous additional programs and benefits.

The budget is posted online here.