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Asbury Park City Council adopted the 2016 municipal budget Wednesday.

The city will transfer $275,000 from its municipal Transportation Utility’s 2014 fund balance to offset the decrease in Transitional Aid from the state, City Manager Michael Capabianco said.

“We will be using money that was left over and not allocated for anything,” he said.

While the municipality sought $1.25 million in transitional aid, the state decreased the city’s allocation by a half million. Rather than transferring the decrease on to taxpayers who were already facing a $152 increase to their annual tax bill, Capabianco said the city opted for the fund balance transfer.

Capabianco said the money in the Transportation Utility reserve can be transferred to the general fund if it has not been applied to a project after two years.

“You cannot apply a utility’s funds to the general fund within the same year [of receipt],” he said.  “The money if from the 2014 fund that was not allocated. It is not from the current year or the [2015] reserve year revenues.”

He said the Transportation utility revenues reached $3.4 million by August’s end.

The fund transfer will mean the proposed .012 tax rate will remain, equating to the $152 annual property tax bill increase for the owner of an average assessed $240,646 home.

While there was a reduction over last year’s 1.3 tax rate, the increase is a result of property valuations shifting from $80 million to $1.3 billion this year, equating to a 6 percent increase in the average assessed value of a home.

Asbury Park participates in the new Monmouth County Tax program, which assesses homes at full market value every year instead of every 10 years.

In 2015 annual tax bills increased by $199.

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