By Audrey Levine, Staff Writer
While there is agreement among the four candidates for two seats on the Borough Council that taxes are too high, the biggest roadblock is figuring out how to lower them without compromising the services residents have come to expect.
In the Nov. 3 elections, Democrats Joe Lukac and Ron Skirkanish will be up against Republicans Sherri Lynn and Rich Onderko for two three-year seats on the Borough Council.
”We want to reduce spending without reducing services,” Ms. Lynn said.
According to Ms. Lynn, she is a proponent of the use of shared services to reduce costs while still providing residents with what they need in terms of inspections, medical services and other amenities.
”We should follow the county direction with shared services,” she said.
One example, she said, would be to share information technology services so the borough does not have to rely on an outside service or its own officials to maintain its Web site.
”If the Web site is too much upkeep, we can work with the county to keep it updated,” she said.
Mr. Lukac agreed shared services would be an affective effective way of reducing costs in the borough, and he said the council can take hints from the Board of Education in sharing maintenance and other costs.
”There are always services that could be trimmed, shared or cut back,” he said. “If we are going to cut services, taxes should go down.”
Sometimes, Mr. Lukac said, there is a slight fear using shared services will cause a small town like Manville to be left behind, but they could prove to be essential in the future.
”Maybe we can do something to share to find that balance of cutting,” he said. “There has to be a better way than borrowing.”
In addition, Ms. Lynn said, the borough should look toward the county’s example of not filling positions after someone has retired. That is an ongoing consideration with the county, she said, and it might be worthwhile for the borough to consider as well to reduce salary costs.
Controlling spending, Mr. Onderko said, will be essential to helping residents in the future.
”Until the town finds other sources of revenue, we need to be careful,” he said, citing certain services such as continuous grass pickup he would like to see restored. “I think we have made enough cuts. We had things that were probably not necessary in a recent bond ordinance. We need to be a little more conservative.”
In addition to sharing services and controlling spending, Mr. Skirkanish said the borough also needs to look more heavily into grant opportunities. For example, he said, the borough might want to consider solar paneling on public buildings as a way to heat and cool them instead of paying for the utilities.
”I want to look into anything I can to save on revenue on an item basis,” he said. “There are certain things I would like to see happen in the borough if there are grants available. Nothing will be overlooked, and we will look into every alternative.”
One way the council managed to reduce the borough tax rate by 2.25 percent this year was by accepting the state’s offer to defer half of the pension payment costs and, instead, pay them back, with interest, over a 15-year period. Several of the candidates said they were actually against this deferral plan.
”I am against the pension deferral plan,” Mr. Lukac said. “We were advised in the schools that it was not a good move. It looks great now that (the tax rate) went down, but how great will it be in two to three years when we have to pay those years’ pension payments plus pay this back?”
Mr. Onderko, who said he does understand the reason the deferral plan was accepted, is still against it and would prefer to see it paid back with a lower interest rate than the projected 8 percent when the borough begins paying it back in April 2012.
”I was not in favor of the pension deferral and paying the State of New Jersey interest expense on a borough operating budget expense,” he said. “Pension and health care costs are high enough where one doesn’t want to pay additional interest expense on top of the original expense.”
Still, in order to continue to lower the tax rate, Mr. Skirkanish said, the borough will have to look into making other cuts, which he knows residents would not look kindly on either.
”People say they would like their taxes lowered, but if we do, we have to cut services,” he said. “The economy’s bad, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
For example, Mr. Skirkanish said, the Public Works Department is already a “skeleton crew,” and he is not sure where anything can be trimmed at this point.
”The department is not that big to begin with,” he said. “But it is a balancing act. We want to keep what we have and improve, and that we will look into.”
Mr. Lukac said the borough will have to work a little harder to cut back on nonessentials, possibly beyond the 10 percent each department already had been asked to cut this year.
”The superintendent told schools to cut back on nonessentials, and they did,” he said. “We will have to trim some costs (in the borough). Maybe we can find services to share to find a balance instead of just cutting.”
For Ms. Lynn, finding that balance is all about figuring out how to do more with less. She said the borough needs to be in the mindset that having a little bit still counts and is beneficial to the whole community in general.
”We can do it if we dig deeper and reach higher,” she said. “This can catch on positively or negatively, but it’s a mindset of if there’s a will, there’s a way.”
At this point, Ms. Lynn said, there is no way to know how the economy will be in the future, but she believes the current administration did what it had to in the short term, and the borough will wait to see how it affects the long term.
”It is going to take creativity on everyone’s part,” she said. “Things will turn around.”
