A vacant apartment building along Route 440 in Hopelawn is being converted into supportive housing for residents with disabilities and high medical needs. A closing is expected in July.
Rahway Finalizes Its 2026 Budget, With One Last Adjustment
Rahway City Council holds a special meeting Monday to finalize its 2026 budget after months of delays. The final change amounts to $182,500 and does not raise property taxes.
Rahway City Hall, June 2026 (The Central Jerseyan)
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Chris Howell | August 15, 2026 ***Updated August 17, 2026, 8:00 PM.***
Rahway City Council held a special meeting Monday at 6:30 p.m. to take a final vote on the city’s 2026 budget, after the original public hearing was delayed.
The budget changed by $182,500, a small shift compared to the city’s overall $79.6 million spending plan, and it does not additionally raise property taxes. The amount residents will pay through their tax bills stays the same as what the city announced last month.
So where is the money coming from, and where is it going? Two main things are driving the change.
The city is formally recognizing $102,731 in bills from previous years that hadn’t yet been accounted for in the budget. New Jersey requires municipalities to account for old, unpaid obligations like this through a specific budget process rather than just quietly paying them.
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The bills are owed to eight different vendors, ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. The largest single amount, more than $55,000, is owed to T&M Associates, an engineering firm that holds several ongoing contracts with the city.
The city is also adding $27,940 to the water utility’s budget, described as an “overexpenditure” identified during a review of spending over a prior year. The money is coming from the water utility’s own savings, not from new fees or new debt.
Monday’s meeting includes an open public comment period before the council votes on the budget resolutions, giving residents one last opportunity to raise the same transparency questions that have followed the budget since July.
When the council introduced the budget on July 6, it did so without releasing the underlying document to the public. The budget was posted two days later, a move city officials defended as compliant with state law after criticism from residents. At that meeting, resident Andrew Garcia Phillips asked the council directly why it had introduced a budget “no one has seen.” Garcia Phillips ran a primary challenge earlier this year against all three at-large council incumbents up for reelection in November. Resident Lisa Vandever raised similar concerns, noting that neighboring towns had already completed their budget processes while Rahway’s remained stalled.
The budget’s public hearing in early August was expected to lead to a vote, but instead ended in another delay. At the August 3 meeting, city auditor Dieter Lerch told the council the vote couldn’t proceed because the city had a separate application pending before the state Local Finance Board, tied to the city’s plans to repay a terminal pay obligation for retired employees. That review is what pushed the final vote to Monday’s special meeting.
The August 3 hearing also produced the sharpest exchange yet over the budget’s rollout. Alan Levy, a Republican council candidate, argued that the city had introduced multiple, differing versions of the budget document without making clear which one the council actually voted on. Lerch pushed back, saying the process “complies 100 percent with state statute,” though he did not directly address Levy’s specific claim about multiple versions.
Editor’s note: The Central Jerseyan is free to read and supported by advertising. If you value this kind of local reporting and want to help sustain it, you can become a citizen supporter on Patreon. Your contribution helps fund continued coverage of local government, schools, and community issues.
***This article was updated to reflect the final council vote.***
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