Also expected to be on Monday’s special meeting agenda is a proposed resolution on the formation of a Valleywide Senior Advisory Board (SAB).
By John Tredrea
A public and hearing and adoption vote on Pennington’s proposed $2.9 million budget for 2005 is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at Borough Hall.
Tied to budget adoption are two other measures that need OKs if the budget as proposed is to be passed Monday.
They are: the amendment to increase the budget’s bottom line, which was introduced June 6; and the ordinance to increase water and sewer fees by 8 percent, also OK’d June 6.
Borough Auditor Robert Morrison said June 6 that the water and sewer increase is needed to balance the operating budgets of the water and sewer utilities.
Also expected to be on Monday’s special meeting agenda is a proposed resolution on the formation of a Valleywide Senior Advisory Board (SAB). Hopewell Township and Hopewell Borough already have voted in favor of creating the SAB (see separate story).
On June 6, a majority of Pennington Borough Council members voted to increase the proposed $2,864,230 budget for 2005 by $12,025, bringing the spending plan’s bottom line to $2,876,255.
Auditor Morrison said June 6 that $10,000 of the $12,025 increase is needed to balance the portion of the budget pertaining to road work. Another $2,000 was added because the borough is not going to get a state recycling grant it expected to receive, he said. The remaining $25 was for the borough’s share of funding the Hopewell Valley Municipal Alliance.
Councilman Joseph Lawver voted against the amendment June 6 because he said the $10,000 needed to balance the road work portion of the budget should be taken from surplus instead of this year’s tax revenues. Also voting no was Councilman Jim Lytle.
If the budget, as amended, is approved Monday, the result would be a municipal tax rate of 71.8 cents per $100 of assessed property value up four-tenths of a cent before the budget was amended and up 8.8 cents from last year. For the owner of a property assessed at $231,200 (the borough average), a 71.8-cent tax rate would bring an estimated municipal property tax of $1,660 for 2005, up an estimated $203 from 2004.
There are no layoffs in the proposed budget.
Among proposed expenditures in the 2005 spending plan are leasing a new police car $9,000 a year for three years, with the borough having the option of buying the car in the fourth year for $1. Also proposed is $108,000 for Department of Public Works vehicles, some of which may be purchased secondhand, including a heavy-duty dump truck, a medium-size dump truck with snowplow and an SUV.
Also proposed is hiring a new Department of Public Works employee. Since that individual would be on the payroll only about half of this year, $15,000 has been allotted in the draft budget for that purpose, Councilman Weed Tucker said. It would be about double that amount next year, when the new hire would work the full 12 months, he said.
Another $5,000 would pay for extra summer help for the Department of Public Works, for grass-cutting and other tasks.