Lambertville council adopts amended 2025 budget, cap-bank ordinance and 2025 salary schedule

The Lambertville City Council on May 1 adopted a set of routine but consequential fiscal measures: the council approved the second reading and final passage of Ordinance 09-2025 (a cap-bank ordinance), adopted an amendment to the 2025 municipal budget (Resolution 87-2025) and approved the city’s 2025 salary-and-wages schedule.

Council opened and closed a public hearing on Ordinance 09-2025 with no speakers and moved to final passage. The mayor then opened a public hearing on amendments to the introduced 2025 budget and asked Christy Erit, identified in the meeting as the city’s chief financial officer, to explain the changes. Erit said the state recommended clerical adjustments that reallocate funds between line items — for example moving $9,300 from construction into code enforcement, moving $5,000 for a zoning officer’s salary from a shared-service line into the Frenchtown interlocal account, and transferring a $12,000 uniform-fire-safety revenue line to the fire department — but that “everything is still the same” monetarily and the tax rate remains unchanged.

Cindy read Resolution 87-2025 into the record in full, enumerating updated revenue and appropriation totals across the budget worksheets and instructing that a certified copy be filed with the Director of Local Government Services for certification. The council then voted to adopt the resolution; a roll call was taken and the motion carried unanimously.

Later in the meeting the council considered and adopted the annual salary-and-wages resolution for 2025, which the mayor said covers employees who were active at the start of the year and notes that portions of some positions are funded from dedicated sources such as the affordable-housing trust and stormwater grant.

Council members also previewed capital funding priorities that will be covered in the capital bond ordinance this year, including police facility surveillance and processing improvements, body-worn cameras (estimated ~$60,000), replacement of a recycling truck (estimated ~$350,000), ADA upgrades to the justice center (estimated ~$75,000) and an extensive stormwater-mapping and retrofit program required by the state’s MS4 permit. The mayor described the capital bond ordinance as a vehicle to finance work the city cannot pay for from current revenues and said more detailed numbers will be provided in coming weeks.

The council’s votes on the budget amendment and salary resolution were recorded in roll call and the mayor said staff and council members would continue work through the year to implement the approved budget.