Scotch Plains’ New Budget Explained: Taxes, Spending, and Debt

Our last article about the Scotch Plains budget ended up being an article about missing documents and blocked access. Soon after its publication, the Township updated its site and provided access to the budget documents we needed for our analysis. Scotch Plains deserves credit as many municipalities tend to respond to our reporting with either silence, distraction campaigns or tantrums – it was refreshing to see an adult response.

The 2026 Intro Budget is at ~$40.9M across operating fund – a bump from the 2025 adopted by a little over $2M with the general budget increasing about the same amount.

This is a heavy bump from one year to the next and the tax impact flows with that increase.

The municipal purpose tax rate rises from 1.827 to 2.007, municipal purpose tax levy rises by about $2M, going from ~ $19M to $20.9M which comes to a tax increase of about $243 for the average resident. Then there’s the minimum library tax which also increases – by about $220,000.

On the spending side, some of the biggest increases are concentrated in a handful of areas with general government rising ~444K

Personnel costs increase by a little over $2M in 2026 with police accounting for the largest single jump (+ $1.43 million). Supervisory staff also jumps by $354K. And it’s not just salaries – staffing goes from 115 FTE to 118, while PTE stays flat at 32.

Health benefits are another major pressure point – as we’ve seen in all of the other budgets we’ve covered this year. Health benefits (active employees) jump almost $500K and when you include retiree benefits the total increase comes to ~ $678K.

And debt doesn’t look so hot either.

Net debt jumps up by nearly $5.6M with notes outstanding up by ~$4.4M. The bonds provide some relief but not enough to offset the hike. Per capita we can see how this hurts as the individual burden goes from about $970 to a little over $1,200.

Here’s how the three years flow – from ’24 ACFR to ’25 Adopted to ’26 Intro.

Source File (zip)

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