Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
While touting its ballyhooed “pay as you go” mantra, the Hillsborough Township Committee unanimously approved its 2017 capital ordinance on Tuesday, giving the green light to nearly $805,000 worth of municipal upgrades, repairs and replacements.
Deputy Mayor Gloria McCauley, who also serves as the committee’s liaison to finance, said the move was a fiscally responsible one since the township was not “borrowing for routine capital purchases or improvements this year.”
“As the township maintains a watchful eye over finances, the standard of this township committee remains,” she said during the Aug. 8 committee meeting.
The township will utilize funds available in its Capital Improvement Fund to the tune of $462,127.28. The remaining $342,835.50 will come from “off-site contributions [that] have been received from various developers” for road and detention basin purposes throughout the township, as well as for funding recreational projects.
Taking into account the various contributions from developers and the availability of funds in the township’s budget, McCauley stated that taxpayers will not be impacted by the ordinance.
“As we continue to operate under the guides of the ‘pay as you go’ plan, it proves as a savings to our taxpayers by not incurring interest expenses in future years through bonding for these purchases,” she said.
According to the ordinance, the total $804,962.78 will be used for 11 separate items: $100,000 for culvert replacements; $100,000 for the replacement of damaged wooden guide rails; $34,127 for network server upgrades; $8,450 for the replacement of the right side of the skate park; $180,000 to replace a Department of Public Works (DPW) dump truck; $28,000 for a Kompakt High Density Records Storage system for the Hillsborough Township Police Department; $75,000 for a Ford F-450 Mason Dump with a snow package for the DPW; $69,616 for a Ford F-450 with a snow plow; $9,770 for picnic tables and grills for the township’s parks; $125,000 for a cistern replacement along Deer Path; and $75,000 for various sidewalk replacements.
“This capital ordinance is based on the recommendations of the Capital Planning Committee,” Committeeman Greg Burchette, who serves as the township committee’s liaison to the CPC, said. “Those items [were] recommended as high in priority.”
In related news, the committee approved a resolution awarding a contract for a roadway resurfacing project on New Amwell Road, from Route 206 to Taurus Drive.
Top Line Construction Corporation will execute the contract, which will not exceed more than $594,687.86.
Officials said the project is being funded by grants from the state Department of Transportation, as well as previously allotted budgetary funds.
