Full Notification

Budget and Taxes:

This year’s operating budget formulation effort (what we use to fund all of your annual municipal services including Police, Fire, DPW, Recreation, Library etc) is now in full swing.  We just closed the books on our 2023 $17.4 million operating budget and turned our focus to 2024.  The key players in this effort are Council President Christoph Hesterbrink as our Finance Committee Chair, Chief Financial Officer Issa Abbasi, and Borough Administrator Marisa Mesropian.  

We have to make significant progress in February for us to reach our goal of introducing a budget in April.  More importantly, we appreciate how our analysis of where we are and what we want to ideally fund will dictate the balance we must strike between service cuts, potential tax increases and our pursuit of new revenue opportunities.  So where are we in our efforts to create this year’s operating budget?  

We know that the loss of $500 thousand a year in pandemic related funding will have a huge impact on us.  We used these funds in 2022 and 2023 to pay for much needed vaccination clinics in town with the majority of this funding used to offset police salaries and wages.  

Losing $500 thousand dollars from our budget is a big deal by itself.  Couple this with macro inflationary pressures, state mandated increases in pension and benefits funding of 7-12%, and the costs of preparing for a mandated revaluation etc. and we have a big hole to fill.

Consequently, as we pull our numbers together, we are going into our next phase of this effort asking all of our department heads to trim their budgets.  How much we have to cut will be dictated over the next several weeks as we dig into the budget details.  Everything is on the table for consideration, no exceptions.   

Presented in no particular order there are three levers your governing body will use to come up with the best balanced budget.  These are 1) service cuts 2) new revenue streams and 3) tax increases.   From where I’m sitting and what I know right now, we will use all of these levers to achieve the best balance for Leonia and enable us to introduce a responsible operating budget this year.  

I will keep you advised of our budget formulation progress but wanted to give you a heads up on the reality of what we’re facing this year as a municipality.   More to come…

Broad Avenue Veterans Banners, Eagle Project

For his Eagle project, Christian Choi of Leonia Scout Troop 71 is leading an effort to place Leonia Veterans banners on Broad Avenue during May in anticipation of Memorial Day festivities and in November for Veterans Day.   

Christian’s project will feature photos of Leonia’s veterans and can be secured for any of our Leonia vets by filling out a submission form.   Adorning Broad Avenue with veteran’s banners will allow all of us to take pride in the service and sacrifices our men and women in uniform have made on our behalf.  I know we will have at least one banner for Leonian John McCloy who was a two time Medal of Honor winner (incredibly rare plus he had his own US Postage stamp in his honor), and I hope a banner for a Tuskegee Airman from Leonia who should definitely be featured.  I’m going to make sure to submit a form with my contribution to the effort on behalf of my father, Irv Ziegler, who served on the front lines in Korea and won a Bronze Star.  Something, by the way, he never once spoke about.

Honoring our Leonia heroes in this way is a great way to celebrate them and our community at the same time.  Background information with submission forms is also available at https://www.leoniavetbanners.com/ .    

If you have a veteran in your family, please consider signing them up for a banner.  It will be a marvelous and lasting tribute.  

Overpeck Park Section IV Design 

To strengthen relationships between Leonia and key stakeholders, I’ve embarked on a series of meetings with key business leaders and officials.  I already told you about my initial discussions with Kulite in an earlier update.  

Recently, through the much appreciated effort of NJ Senator Gordon Johnson, I met with our County Executive Jim Tedesco along with the County Administrator/Counsel and his Chief of Staff.  Our initial meeting ran more than twice the amount of time we allotted which I took as an encouraging sign, and I felt very good coming out of it.  

Emerging from this meeting, I have our County Executive’s personal assurance Leonia will have a representative on the Overpeck IV design committee when the committee starts its work (date TBD).   We jointly agreed on a well known Leonian (to be announced later) who I also know is a firm advocate for natural park design and reflects the views and design preferences of a majority of us.  Suffice it to say, Leonia now has a seat at the table on this important committee.  

I look forward to working with the County on any and all projects in which Leonia has a direct interest and believe we have taken a big step in the right direction to strengthening this important relationship.  

Bill Ziegler
Leonia Mayor

For previous Mayoral updates, please visit:  Leonia, NJ | Home (leonianj.gov)