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Princeton council introduces 2025 municipal budget; officials cite surplus growth and a modest tax increase
Summary
CFO Sandy Webb presented the 2025 introductory municipal budget to council on March 10. The proposal uses increased surplus and higher pilot and hotel-motel revenues to offset rising costs; the council introduced the budget and will vote again at a later meeting.
The Princeton mayor and council introduced the 2025 municipal budget March 10 after a presentation by Chief Financial Officer Sandy Webb outlining revenue changes, use of surplus and upward pressures on expenditures.
Webb said the introduced budget represents roughly a 3% increase over the prior year and includes additional salary funding to cover retirements and cost-of-living increases. On revenues, she said the town did not include a one-time municipal aid payment of $256,000 that appeared in the 2024 budget and that the AvalonBay pilot payment and university and hotel-motel receipts have increased; the town received its first AvalonBay pilot payment this year and the line item is expected to bring in "close to a million dollars" with four quarterly payments in 2025.
Webb said Princeton's surplus rose from just under $22 million at the end of 2023 to over $25 million at the end of 2024 and that the introduced budget assumes roughly $1 million more use of surplus than in prior years. She listed major expenditure drivers as debt service, group insurance, trash collection and utilities—items she said the municipality has little control over.
The budget materials show an example taxpayer impact: on an average assessed value of about $857,000, Webb said the municipal-only share of taxes would increase by about $106 and the total municipal-plus-library increase would be about $134 annually. Council members acknowledged the numbers and the budget introduction resolution passed; the ordinance-style introduction requires a final vote at a later meeting (council noted they will vote again in two weeks).
