Somerset County’s budget tells a similar story to the Union County budget we wrote about a couple of days ago — without all the Scutaris.

Somerset’s 2025 budget comes in at about $298m, – a slight increase from the prior year ($295.9m). And while this might not look like much, folks in Somerset are going to end up paying about 79 bucks more, according to county officials.

The county tax rate actually dropped by 2.29% from 2024 to 2025, but rising property values pushed the base from $78.5 billion to $85.0 billion — an increase of about 6%.

Employee costs are another factor, with salaries and wages increasing by 4.3%, group insurance costs going from $31.44 million to $32.19 million, and pension contributions increasing for both the Public Employees’ and Police & Fire systems. Even little increases in this pool are going to create big waves due to the dollar amounts at play.

Debt isn’t helping, with appropriations jumping 12.8% and the total outstanding debt going from $275.3 million to $292.4 million. This while capital improvements were cut back by about $400k. The increase includes old debt and the cost of borrowing for capital projects.  Somerset has more than $260 million in planned public works improvements connected to roads, bridges, and facilities.

The County Administrator’s Office saw salary increases — from $434,028 to $520,750 in 2025- covering  salaries & wages of the Administrator’s Office staff as a whole.

Part of the issue may be sharp drops in state and federal aid…

As inflation continues to affect the cost of necessities and NJ trails the nation on employment with gloomier news on the horizon, that 1% increase connected to Social Welfare spending is a drop in the bucket with a hard squeeze on a sponge that’s drying up.

While Union County’s budget is bigger there are some common themes — after years of freezing the tax levy, the county raised it by 1.75% in 2024. Union also saw declines in grant funding, higher debt service, and capital improvement appropriations holding steady at about $6 million.

Here’s a comparison of the two counties in connection to state and federal funding declines…

A portion of the decline involves the expiration of one-time grants like federal Covid funds and state grants for projects.

So back to that extra 79 bucks.  It’s because homes are worth more now, pushing up a resident’s share of the county’s costs. But the reason the county needs to collect that extra cash in the first place is that they’re losing massive outside funding.

Sourcing Note: Figures in this article are drawn from Somerset County’s adopted 2024 and 2025 budgets, as well as the county’s official 2025 budget press release for the average homeowner tax impact. Where prior-year grant totals are not published as a single line, comparisons are based on the detailed revenue tables in the adopted budget.

Source Documents

Also Read:

Scutari, OPRA, and the Missing Answers in Union County’s Budgets

Middlesex 2025 Budget – Same Song, Different County

Morris County’s 2025 Budget- A Flat Rate That’s Not So Flat

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