Mayor says money isearning interest

Despite rumors, funds for sale of water

utility are deposited in growing account
By:Alec Moore
   Payments the borough has received for the pending sale of the Dukes Parkway water treatment facility have been deposited in an interest-earning account, according to Mayor Angelo Corradino.
   The mayor was responding to accusations made by residents at a recent Borough Council meeting that he did not attend.
   At the Dec. 3 Borough Council meeting, questions were raised as to why money being held by the borough from the $4.9 million sale of the treatment facility to Elizabethtown Water Co. was allegedly not in an interest-bearing account.
   Mayor Corradino, who noted that he expects the borough to close on the sale of the treatment facility soon, said the $3.9 million that Elizabethtown has paid the borough for the treatment facility to date — in monthly installments of $100,000 — is in fact being held in an interest-bearing account with Somerset Valley Bank.
   The mayor noted, however, that $900,000 to which the borough will be entitled once the sale of the treatment facility has been finalized, is in escrow. He added that Elizabethtown set aside the $900,000 basically as a down payment, and as a sign of good faith toward its commitment to purchase the facility.
   Until the sale is finalized though, the borough cannot touch that $900,000 and, therefore, cannot put it into an interest-bearing account, he said. The mayor also expressed that, in his view, the borough is saving money by receiving the balance of the $4.9 million — minus the $900,000 commitment — in installments rather than by putting $4.9 million into an interest-bearing account.
   "I don’t think we would be making $125,000 a month in interest," said the mayor, indicating that the borough is saving that much in the operating expenses and water costs that would be paid if the utility hadn’t been sold.
   Also at the Dec. 3 meeting, questions were also raised over a recent $600 accounting discrepancy within the borough’s tax collection office, which is now being audited. The findings of that audit will determine whether or not the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office and Manville Police will launch a criminal investigation.
   Mayor Corradino said the resignation of the borough’s previous part-time tax collector, Diane Wynn, accepted Dec. 3 is unrelated to the accounting error and audit. He said Ms. Wynn’s resignation stemmed from the borough’s decision to hire a full-time tax collector.
   The mayor also confirmed that an employee of the tax collectors office is currently on paid leave, but declined to comment on the reasons for the leave or whether or not the leave was related to the accounting error.
   "We thought if we had a full-time person covering the tax collector’s office, (the accounting error) would never have happened," said the mayor, who noted that while she was serving Manville, Ms. Wynn also served as tax-collector in Branchburg. "If she wanted the full-time job, she certainly would have been considered for it."