ELECTRIC

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“That is an interesting idea,” Fanucci declared. “Not that we can do it, but I am just throwing it out there.”

Butler, however, “is not allowed to use electric profit in their budget.”

Meanwhile, Pemberton Borough, with a population of a little less than 1,400 people, utilizes “anywhere between $160,000 and $200,000 a month to offset our taxes.”

In doing an “analysis to see if it is feasible to leave the consortium and rejoin JCP&L,” Fanucci said she based the findings on “about” 559 ratable properties that pay for electricity, though she noted it is not a precise figure given she couldn’t immediately locate information for how many apartments there are in the borough, for example, that utilize electricity.

Then “with the help of Mr. Fenster” in doing “an analysis of revenue versus disbursement,” Fanucci incorporated the fact that in December of last year, the borough Electric Department utilized $179,000 from the electric revenue, and in January, it was about $169,000. Borough residents, she pointed out, are currently paying about 22 cents a kilowatt hour, while businesses pay around 27 cents per kilowatt hour.

“So, the funds that would vanish, in other words, or go away if the department is disbanded, is about $720,368,” Fanucci pointed out. “The funds that are needed from taxpayers is $634,541. I then divided by 559 and that gave me an extra $1,135.14 in property taxes.”

So, based on 559 ratable properties, if the department is disbanded and no longer generating revenue, “it comes out to $1,135.14 in extra property tax every residential unit would have to make up,” she emphasized.

“It doesn’t sound good, it really doesn’t,” Fanucci said.

However, according to Fanucci, after studying a “763 kilowatt hour bill” assessed to a JCP&L customer that she obtained for purposes of performing the analysis, “if we went to JCP&L, the “rate would go down in related to Robert’s property. The 10-acre parcel at issue, the woman pointed out, “also borders Shadow Lake.”

While she maintained “she doesn’t know just how serious of a thing” pigs could pose to the development, she warned, “there may be a lot of people’s quality of life being disturbed.”

She then asked if in regard to pigs, if there are buffering requirements or ones that spell out “how far away from a development” can they be located.

It is all something that Heinold maintained he would “have to take a look at it,” with Township Administrator Sue Onorato, in response to a question from the woman asking what the parcel at issue is zoned as, responding that it sits in the town’s Agricultural Production Zone.

Committeeman Neil Wilkinson responded that there is an “average 11 percent decrease in property values around pig farms.”

“I don’t begrudge anyone from making a living, or farming or what not,” the woman declared. “But the community that lives there has been through quite a traumatic experience with the puppy mill right there. I love pigs, but five pigs are different than having 20 pigs.”

It was not immediately clear as of press time if the missing dog has since been reunited with its owner, or if the 10-acre parcel alleged to have been “up for sale for quite some time” is still actually up for grabs.

This newspaper found a listing on Feb. 28 for a 10-acre parcel at 543 Oakshade Road, with it noted that the transaction is “pending” after the parcel had been on realtor.com for 833 days.

FirstBaptist

r 50 Burrs Mill Roadd, Southampton, NJ 08088 609 -847- 4848 www.iamthatiamministriesinnc com your electric,” which would offset at least a portion of that theoretical tax increase that would be needed to make up the difference.

She noted that while in addition to a 9-cent per kilowatt hour charge, JCP&L has other additional charges it assesses to its customers, including a delivery service fee, the utility’s bill assessed to the customer was $107.28 for the month, while if the borough’s 22 cent per kilowatt hour rate had been assessed to that same customer for their usage, they would have paid $174.86, or “$67.58 more.”

“Multiply that by 12 months, and that is a savings $810.96,” meaning the theoretical increase in property taxes for that individual, in using the $1,135.14 figure, would be approximately $324.18, or what she called “almost a wash, whether we stay or go.”

Fanucci noted, however, that “it depends on how big your electric bills are, whether you would see a true savings” and that the “bigger your bill is, the more you would save obviously going with JCP&L.”

“Another angle” to all of this, as the councilwoman put it, is “if you get rid of the electric company,” the borough “might have vehicles to sell to get a one-time cash infusion,” and “another upside” is that the borough office workers, “if you didn’t have an Electric Department,” would not have to spend their time “doing the billing, collecting or getting (payments) out of the chute.”

“They would have time to spend on other things,” she said of the potential for cost savings.

Jerome, however, given his council tenure and oversight of the borough’s Electric Department, would presumably have significant influence on any future council decision.

“I certainly would welcome any and all analysis of the borough Electric Department,” he said in response to Fanucci and Fenster having released the results of their preliminary analysis. “And there are probably few customers who pay more for electricity than I. But we do have to take many things into consideration, and not just the raw facts of comparing one utility to ours.”

Jerome pointed out that the borough is

“bound by state budgetary requirements” and that there are “tax cap laws” to be mindful of when the borough goes to determine what “taxation can be done to cover a shortfall.”

“We can only raise the tax rates by certain amounts,” he declared. “So, it is kind of a Catch-22 situation.”

In addition, according to Jerome, “if we took revenue out of our budget,” the borough would be “hamstrung in trying to raise our general fund tax budget to overcome the loss” due to one of the caps in place.

“It (the borough’s Electric Department) was not something that was designed or laid out by anybody who was here (on council), or by anybody’s parents who were here,” Jerome added. “It happened a long time ago when the borough made its own power in this town. Then new state legislation came in on top of that, and it really does, aside from utility side of things – from the taxation and economic side, make it very tough to do anything very much different than what we are doing now.

“I am not saying it is not welcome, and I am not saying it is something that we have not already analyzed, but I am just giving a little bit more information in regard to our actual, true situation on the ground.”

Griffin immediately blurted out a “thankyou” to Jerome, with Fanucci, prior to his comments, acknowledging that there are “certain things” she hasn’t yet “figured out” in doing the preliminary analysis, which was based on “partial” figures from the Electric Department’s finances. If she gets “more information,” she said she will “present it at a later meeting.”

Fanucci, following the meeting, told this newspaper that it appears “we don’t have the capacity at this time” to dissolve the Electric Department and move to JCP&L due to the cap constraints, as pointed out by Jerome.