The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Township officials have a rough idea of how much money they would ideally need to keep Franklin running in 2025 – more than $72.4 million – and now they have to work out how that amount will be raised, or if it will be reduced.
The Township Council wrapped up the second of two virtual budget hearings on March 18, during which departments ranging from the police to public works and the township itself presented their “wish lists” for 2025 funding. The first budget hearing was held on March 10.
The Council’s Financial Oversight Committee is scheduled to meet on March 23 to once again review the departmental budget requests and consider them along with mandated and fixed costs to come up with a final proposed spending plan that is scheduled to be introduced at the Council’s first April meeting.
Now that they have the proposed appropriations, the Council will need expected revenue figures, which will be presented at the March 23 meeting by Andrew Hodulik, the Township’s financial consultant.
There are “$3.7 million in increased costs,” Hodulik said. “That’s what the challenge is in order to balance the budget.”
Part of that discussion will be how much, if any, of the Township’s $21 million surplus – officially called the “fund balance” – to use to balance the budget.
The Township has a long-standing policy to not let that surplus dip below $20 million, but some Council members seemed inclined to do just that, in the name of mitigating any tax increase.
“The Financial Oversight Committee will meet on Monday, and we’ll have to go through all of this again to make an attempt to finalize the usage of fund balance numbers, and anything else related to the need to increase revenue by the means we increase revenue,” Township Manager Robert Vornlocker said. “Whether it be increasing taxes, or increasing the utilization of fund balance.”
Vornlocker told the Council that there might not be much to trim.
“I went through every single budget line by line,” Vornlocker said. “You see what the major cost of running a government is, it’s the people who are involved in providing government services. The operating expenses for these department are not significant when you factor in, for a $72 million budget, $32 million of it is salary and wages. That’s just a portion of your employee cost.”
“Factor in another $10 million for health insurance and another $8 million for pensions, and you’re starting to get close to that $72 million number,” he said.
“We’ve already removed quite a bit,” Mayor Phil Kramer said. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”
Among those making presentations on March 18 was Public Safety Director Quovella Maeweather, who presented the Council with an $804,850 ask.
Included on her proposed budget request is $392,000 for eight SUVs and $235,000 for outfitting the vehicles.
She also requested $288,000 for 19 in-car Axon cameras, $47,000 for a Ford F-150 pickup, $195,000 for three camera trailers, and $110,000 for a generator for the Office of Emergency Management, among other items.
The generator would be installed in the Community Relations Bureau on Hamilton Street,which Quovella said will serve as an alternative emergency operations center if, for some reason, police headquarters on DeMott Lane cannot be used.
Maeweather said the vehicles are needed so the department can “keep up with the fleet,” and because a new schedule will put more officers out on the street.
“I know this is critical, and I want to avoid squeezing this too tight,” said Deputy Mayor Shepa Uddin. “Is there a need for eight SUVs? Can we go with six?”
“It becomes a morale and a safety issue at the same time when officers don’t have the proper vehicle to do their jobs,” Maeweather said. “These SUVs are around town, they get a lot of miles on them. It is their primary job to drive around town.”
“That is their mobile office,” she said. “I don’t have cops on the beat, we don’t have them walking around town. It’s not that kind of a town.”
Quovella said the department could wait on some things on her list, but “are the SUVs more important? Absolutely. You want a police car working and to get to your 911 call as quickly as possible.”
Another department with high-ticket requests was Public Works.
Among the proposals submitted by DPW Manager Carl Hauck for the Road Department was a paving machine for $260,000, an electric loader for $600,000, and a truck chassis and plow for $175,000.
The Construction Department, a proposal was made for four Chevy Blazer electric vehicles at a total of $199,800. The vehicles would replace four Ford Explorers that are about 20 years old, Vornlocker said.
The Explorers would be funneled down to the rest of the municipal fleet, he said.
Vornlocker said the Township has a $126,000 grant that can be used to offset the EV’s cost.
Other capital improvements asked for in Hauck’s budget were new fuel tanks to replace some that are end-of-life for $210,000; new fuel tanks for the DPW building for $330,000; new digital signs for $130,000 for the DPW and municipal building; DPW roof replacement for $350,000; DPW park pole barn for $225,000, and replacing the Senior Center meeting room floor for $67,000.
The Township wants to use $685,000 from the Open Space Trust Fund to pay for the salaries of two full-time year-round Parks Department employees and 10, 10-month park maintenance employees.
That’s the fulfillment of a plan devised about 10 years ago to do just that, but not implemented until now, Vornlocker said. Instead, he said, the calculation was for a flat $30,000 per employee.
Other Parks line items included $1.3 million for re-turfing two fields at Middlebush Park, and $750,000 for the long-delayed Catalpa Park construction.
The Middlebush Park project was included more “as a budgetary thing than a real need this year,” Vornlocker said.
“Our turf management company has evaluated the fields,” he said. “If we don’t want to do that this year, we can get another two to four years out of our existing fields. We’ve had minimal repairs done as far as tears in the turf. We’re still well within the safety limits of the fields.
“I just want everyone to understand how much it will cost for us to put turf down on those two fields in the upcoming years,” Vornlocker said. “Sure it will have an escalating cost as time goes by, but given the condition of those fields, I would not recommend that we go ahead.”
The idea for Catalpa Park, off South Middlebush Road in Franklin Park, has been kicking around for about 10 years. Money was allocated for its design and construction, Vornlocker said, but that money “needed to be utilized for a variety of requirements that the state Department of Environmental Protection decided to impose on us, including one that called for a significant redesign of a portion of the park because it was determined by the DEP that there might be a wood turtle in a creek a quarter of a mile from the park.”
“If you design a park in 2015 and here we are in 2025, there’s going to be an escalation in the cost,” he said. “That’s what happens when Covid comes and the DEP doesn’t go to work and they drag their feet. Every time we met their requirements, they came up with new ones.”
Under the Water Utility budget, $3,750,000 is requested for water main replacement on Hamilton Street.
The current water main is made of concrete and was installed in the 1950s, the Council was told.
The Roads budget includes $4 million for the 2025 resurfacing program.
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