The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Although the Township Manager said he doesn’t expect it will all be used, the Township Council on September 14 voted to set aside $800,000 for costs related to Tropical Storm Ida and its cleanup.
Of that total, $200,000 has been earmarked for salaries for police, dispatchers, public works and the Office of Emergency Management, and $600,000 has been targeted for public works and cleanup costs.
Township Manager Robert Vornlocker told the Council that he did not expect that the entire $800,000 would be used, and whatever is left over at the end of the calendar year could be reabsorbed into the township’s budget.
The costs are related to Tropical Storm Ida, which roared through the township on September 1, dropping about 10 inches of rain and causing widespread flooding and street closings.
About a quarter of that $800,000 is targeted to the pickup of household items that were damaged or destroyed by Ida. Those pickups began this week, and are expected to last two weeks.
To facilitate that, the Council on September 14 also approved two contracts with Florida-based companies to do the debris pickup: a $223,350 contract to Ashbritt to do the pickup, and a $69,622.68 contract to Tetra Tech to do the federally mandated monitoring to make sure the items picked up were actually damaged by Ida.
Another agreement approved by the Council on September 14 is with Somerset County, to jointly run a temporary dump on Roycebrook Road in Hillsborough. The County and Township will share the cost of the temporary dump, the total of which has been estimated to be in the mid-$20,000.
Mayor Phil Kramer said the temporary dump is needed because existing dumps cannot handle the onslaught of debris coming into them.
The plan is to bring the debris to the Roycefield Road dump, where it will be compressed and stored until it is trucked to a dump, probably in Pennsylvania, Kramer said.
Vornlocker said he didn’t know how much the entire operation would cost, but he was sure it would not be $800,000.
He said the “wildcard” in the cost would be the “tipping fee” at the dump, which is calculated by the tons of debris.
Kramer said the appropriation may result in a tax increase next year, but also said the amount could be absorbed by the Township’s surplus until the Township is reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Township Manager Robert Vornlocker said that reimbursement could take 18 months to two years.
