Worship Guide

(Continued from Page 6)

municipal-library building that opened the last year, the construction of which that the mayor previously said in August 2019 would not result in a tax increase), in addition to “getting trucks,” or purchasing several new pieces of fire and EMS apparatus, including a some $775,000 new fire engine.

“I’d like to get this number down,” said Watson of the proposed capital improvement figure, noting that the other big portion of that number entailed the municipality’s road improvement project.

While Station 252, Watson recognized, has “never really been suitable” for the firefighters assigned to it, “they are operating out of it,” with the latter his reasoning for believing it is possible to “push the project off a year.”

“I hate to say it, and it’s my station (Watson at one time was a township firefighter), but that seems to me to be something we might have to push off for a year, because I don’t think we can push roads off a year, and I don’t want a $5 million capital budget,” Watson declared. “This is what got us in trouble 10 to 15 years ago.”

Watson was among several Republicans who over 10 years ago had mounted a successful bid in pushing out a thenRepublican establishment that brought Medford to its fiscal knees, with the local purpose tax ultimately having to be raised 25 percent through a voter-approved referendum, above a state instituted 2 percent cap, something that even had drawn the ire of now-former Republican Governor Chris Christie.

Burger, back in March, pointed out that new firehouses are costing towns anywhere between $5 and $12 million currently, with Watson replying that the township doesn’t “need firehouses like that crazy” given that Station 251, known as Union Fire Station, located on Route 70, is already outfitted with main offices for the municipal fire administration.

“I don’t want to have a $5 million capital plan,” Watson emphasized. “We have done very well – nine years without raising taxes, and we have to tighten our belts up here a little bit. We have not been able to do it (tighten belts) because we were so far behind on fire apparatus, police apparatus, and our roads were ignored for a decade before we started on them six years ago.”

Burger agreed with the mayor’s assessment that “a lot had been ignored.”

The town manager then provided council with its first glimpse of the general fund portion of the budget, contending that “dumping fees are astronomical,” necessitating a $100,000 increase in that line item alone, in addition to an increase to account for rising fuel costs. The town, she said, also experienced a $400,000 loss in revenues during COVID, in addition to now “feeling more in retiree health benefits due to retirements happening” and “experiencing inflation just like everyone else is.”

The township has received two $1,224,308.09 American Rescue Fund (ARP) payments (totaling $2,448,616); however, Watson maintained he was “emphatic” that the municipality avoid using “onetime revenues” such as the pandemic relief monies to “balance the budget,” or to put toward recurring expenses, maintaining doing so “is not a good thing” and is “how we (the township) got in trouble” previously.

His colleagues agreed.

Instead, Watson suggested that the rescue funding be used for stormwater drainage improvements, infrastructure improvements and to satisfy longstanding lighting requests on Main Street, which solicited agreement from his colleagues. The governing body also agreed with the mayor’s suggestion to use the relief funds to purchase two, oneman leaf trucks. Burger explained that as a result, those anticipated expenditures would not be reflected in the budget.

In further deliberating how to balance the budget, however, Burger contended that most township departments have had the “exact same” figures “for 10 years” and that “cutting them any more concerns me.” The town manager maintained that she “doesn’t know much more we can cut in expenses,” pointing out, for example, that it is now costing the municipality “double” for leaf and brush pick up.

“We have tough decisions to make here,” Watson declared. “Expenses – let’s see what we can cut. We got hard decisions to make here, with what we might postpone doing. I hate to say it, we have gone nine years without raising taxes at all, and every single person who works for us gets a raise every year, and all our expenses go up every year. It (not raising taxes) is not sustainable, forever.”

The mayor acknowledged “at some point you are going to have to do it, and we may have to consider doing a small increase this year because you can’t just go on forever like this.”

Burger was asked to come back to council with what a one or two cent increase in the municipal tax levy would mean for the budget, in addition to asking her to present a revised, significantly lower capital plan.

She did during the special March 26 budget council meeting, maintaining of the tax increase decision at the session, “it’s really why we are here today.”

“We had several years of more inflated capital plans, due to roads, carrying $2 million in just road program fees, the new building, and other infrastructure work we had to do, (as well as) the new fire truck, with the last one $775,000,” Burger said. “We had really, really large purchases we had to do.”

In presenting council with its options, she recommended that the firehouse renovation project indeed be paused, noting “we have not really employed an architect” to look at the building, in addition to maintaining that with the rise in material costs, it is a “bad time” to be building anything. One estimate put the renovations at $600 to $800 per square-foot, she said.

“It is unreal,” the town manager declared. “It just screams not to do this project.”

The preliminary figures, according to the mayor, came in “over twice of what we thought it was going to be.”

“Maybe start with (forming) a building committee and get ideas of what they think is necessary,” recommended Burger, further suggesting such a body should comprise the fire chief and up to two fire department representatives. “… This is what we did with the municipal building … we worked up to and added funds, as needed, for the building.”

Council decided to pause the planned renovations, for now. Serving as the basis for the final decision was council not only wanting to see if the cost of building materials would go down by next year, but also because of a purported Pinelands Commission review process of 12 to 18 months, with Burger declaring, “We don’t want to fund something we are not going to utilize at this time.”

“Let’s just hope some of these crazy construction costs come down a little bit,” Watson said. “I just want the firemen to realize it is not that we are not going to do this project, we are just not going to fund this part of the construction in this budget, and we don’t even need to do it in this budget.”

Council, during a meeting last month, unanimously adopted a bond ordinance appropriating $3,008,200 for Medford’s capital plan, with the measure also authorizing the issuance of $2,857,790 in general improvement bonds.

What didn’t receive the axe in the final capital plan is $17,500 in appropriations for computer upgrades at the new town hall, $155,000 in appropriations for police vehicles and equipment (including $25,000

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for the purchase of two drones for the police department), $166,000 in appropriations for fire and EMS equipment, $270,000 in “general improvements to various township buildings,” and the approximate $1,478,000 road improvement program.

Some $90,000 has also been earmarked in the bond for improvements to township parks and recreational areas, in addition to $193,200 for acquisition of records equipment for the township’s various offices.

Among the recreational improvements is roofing work for a gazebo and bathroom building at Medford Park, in addition to a gazebo having “structural work” done to it, according to Burger, maintaining the facilities “get utilized quite often.”

Also approved last month was a second ordinance providing for various utility capital improvements and related expenses “in and for the township,” appropriating $1,929,500 from the utility capital improvement fund to finance them. Burger maintained the requests from the utility are “status quo” and the utility budget contains “nothing unusual.”

With several ongoing development projects in town, she noted, the utility is an area where “revenues are very flush with all the construction, water and sewer connection fees.” However, the town manager said she didn’t want to go “too high” with the utility budget as she is “not anticipating the revenues that we had,” but rather “thinks they are going to start to dwindle down,” at least somewhat until another round of housing development occurs with an anticipated project at the site of Flying W Airport.

The “cash is in there to cover” the utility’s requests for 2022, Burger asserted, with a plan to work on a water main on Lakewood Avenue, in addition to making security improvements and improvements to sewer mains, laterals, pump stations, among others.

As for the budget as a whole, after Burger presented the tax impacts, “two cents is off the table,” Watson declared, because it appears the municipality has “got enough” money to avert it being necessary, including by somewhat adjusting the level of surplus used toward balancing the budget. The township has about $3.7 million in surplus, with this budget ultimately using somewhere around See TAXES/ Page 11