The municipal budget runs at about $1 billion a year, of which $19m goes on the police department.

The proposed municipal budget would increase the tax rate by 3 percent.

Until recently, money for the library has come from the city's municipal budget.

Health care accounted for about 25% of the municipal budget.

"Because we have managed our municipal budgets well and he has not."

"It takes people who have been out of office to question the assumptions," especially in the municipal budget, he said.

The council also exercises primary control over the municipal budget.

"But it's a little more difficult when you have to balance these issues against municipal budgets."

In the last eight years, Federal aid has gone from more than 40 percent of the municipal budget to not a penny.

The biggest culprit was a $4.5 million increase, nearly 77 percent, for the municipal budget.

"It's the worst municipal budget season we have seen in a decade," he said.

It might even help to alleviate the annual municipal budget crisis.

A. Municipal budgets are going to be very troublesome this year.

In 2009, the municipal budget figures were very similar.

Q. What kind of things should people be on their guard for in municipal budgets this year?

That sum is nearly $50 million larger than Newark's municipal budget.

A municipal budget, after all, is a product of more than the health of the local economy.

When municipal budget cuts fall, public libraries are often the first to make sacrifices.

On average, pensions consume nearly 20 percent of municipal budgets.

Under current state law, increases in municipal budgets cannot exceed 5 percent over the previous year's budget.

Some teachers have already repaid the money, which will go into the town's general fund, to be applied to next year's municipal budget.

Very few of the other Federal programs that were dropped have resurfaced in state and municipal budgets.

Solid-waste management is fast becoming second only to education in our municipal budgets.

At the same time, the municipal budget is missing millions in real-estate tax revenues.

But if growth stops and the municipal budget turns sour, some residents try to bail out.