The director shall fix a date for the municipal governing body to submit its proposed annual budget to the board. The board may approve the budget, modify it or instruct the director to prepare an alternative budget to be submitted to the board for its approval. Once a budget is approved by the board, it shall be deemed adopted.

Nothing in this act shall limit the power of the chief administrative officer of the municipality and the municipal governing body pursuant to law in consultation with the director to determine within funds available in its annual budget the purposes for which expenditures are to be made by the municipality and the amounts of those expenditures, subject to law and the general requirements imposed by the board on the financial affairs of the municipality.

The board may approve a budget which exceeds the spending limitations of P.L.1976, c. 68 (C. 40A:4-45.1 et seq.).

If the board finds that the appropriation of the amounts required for “deferred charges and statutory expenditures” other than debt service, cannot be made without a probable increase in the cash deficit, the board may authorize by written order an appropriation of less than the full amount required for “deferred charges and statutory expenditures” but not less than the greatest amount that the board finds possible without an anticipated increase in the cash deficit. If a liquidation fund has been created in the municipality, in accordance with section 83 of this act, the board may authorize the appropriation to be made to the liquidation fund in lieu of that for “deferred charges and statutory expenditures.”

This section shall not be construed to authorize the appropriation of less than the full amount required for the payment of debt service, for a judgment, or for any other item for which the municipality is obligated by contract to appropriate a specific sum.

L.1947, c. 151, p. 676, s. 87. Amended by L.1981, c. 211, s. 15, eff. July 20, 1981.