MANVILLE: Paving projects, DPW equipment may get bonded

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
      Some borough streets are being eyed for repaving under the municipal budget adopted April 8.
   Mayor Angelo Corradino said the 2013 budget is $13,064,547, and that the tax rate for municipal government will increase to 76.3 cents from 73.6 cents for each $100 of assessed value.
   That’s about an $81 increase (3.7 percent) on a house assessed at $300,000, he said at the April 8 Borough Council meeting.
   The budget requires raising $8.625 million from local property taxpayers.
   The only resident to ask a question before the budget’s passage was former councilman Richard Onderko, who is running for election to council again this year. Mayor Corradino told him no major cuts nor major increases to the budget were made.
   The mayor said he’ll ask the council to approve a bond for more than $1 million for street repair, public works equipment (generators were one item, he said) and equipment to transition the borough police dispatch system into the county communication system.
   A discussion and introduction of a bond ordinance may take place at the May 13 meeting, he said.
   The budget anticipates receiving state transportation grants of $160,000 for work on West Camplain Road and $175,000 for Whalen Street repair.
   The budget plans to have the same number of borough employees, said the mayor. Police dispatchers have either qualified as patrol officers or been hired for other jobs in the department. Since the middle of 21012, when Manville joined the county system, library employees have become Somerset County employees.
   The mayor said he hoped to add workers to the public works department by the end of the year. When two police officers graduate from the training academy in June, he said he anticipates two more future officers will enter school for a December graduation, he said. If those additions come about, it will bring the force to 24, putting more officers on the street, he said.
   The budget also includes paying $100,000 in deferred charges for expenses from Hurricane Irene in 2011 and $40,000 for fall’s Superstorm Sandy.