The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
This year’s July 4th celebration may have an added feature: drones.
Mayor Phil Kramer is looking into finding a sponsor for a 15-minute lighted drone show to supplement the traditional fireworks display, he said at the March 9 Township Council budget hearing.
The session was the first of two in which Township Manager Robert Vornlocker unveils his proposed budget to the Township Council. Budget heads attend to answer questions the Council might have about their budgetary asks.
Kramer said his research has shown that a 20-minute drone show, with about 100 drones, would cost $20,000.
“I didn’t want to make that expense on the town,” he said. “I’m trying to get someone to sponsor that. And you may see a manufacturer’s or a corporate logo at the beginning of the fireworks spelled out by the drones. But I think that’s worth it.”
Vornlocker said he and the Mayor met with a vendor at the League of Municipalities convention in Atlantic City in November 2025.
“And the estimate that they gave us then was a 20-minute show with 250 drones would be about $45,000,” Vornlocker said. “So that’s why the mayor has backed it down to a smaller number of drones and perhaps a shorter show. But nonetheless, he’s actively pursuing a sponsor for the entire thing.”
“But if that’s the direction that we choose to go, and we’ll need to decide that relatively soon, because it is the 250th anniversary of our country, fireworks around the 4th of July not only have become a little bit more expensive, but there will be a lot more entities, municipalities and nonprofits who will be doing fireworks displays right around that time of the year” he said. “So we’ll need to go out to bid relatively soon, because that is a biddable item for us every year. And so that’s where we’re kind of juggling a lot of things and trying to get the best that we can.”
As usual, one of the biggest line item increases is the cost of group health insurance, Vornlocker said.
The proposed 2026 budget is $10,920,069, Vornlocker said.
“That is to include our health insurance, dental insurance, prescription insurance, employee copay reimbursements, optical reimbursements, our disability insurance, and our flexible spending plan, as well as the medical stipends for those who do not participate in our group health plans,” he said.
The biggest increase, he said, is the medical insurance line, which grew from $9,531,299 last year to $10,751,269 this year.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t note the fact that that is not the total cost that the township incurs for health insurance, dental insurance, and prescription,” he said. “That is the municipal budget portion of the total cost, which I think this year is hovering right around $16 million.”
“What is backed out of that number is the costs associated with the same insurance for the water utility, the costs associated with prescription for the sewage authority, who’s a member of our group for that alone, the cost for prescription and dental and medical for the library, that’s a full reimbursement from the library,” he said. “There are two fire districts, Fire District Number Three and Fire District Number One, that also have employees under our plan, and they cover that full cost on a reimbursement, as well as all of the employee contributions for our active and retired members who make contributions for their health insurance.”
The Construction Code budget is estimated to increase $99,991, to $311,766.
The largest part of that increase – $80,000 – is due to the ongoing construction code document scanning project, said Barry Wilbur, the Township’s Construction Official.
“This project is also part of the clerk’s office, the engineering department,” Wilbur said. “It’s kind of a broad project that’s been ongoing for several years.”
Software licensing increases accounted for $19,991 of the overall increase, Wilbur said.
In talking about her department’s proposed $70,424 budget, Township Clerk Ann Marie McCarthy told the Council that they should soon be able to save expenditures for off-site document storage which has increased $1,600 from 2025.
She said the Board of Educatio0n created a new maintenance building on its new campus on Route 27, and has moved out of the former town hall at Amwell Road and Alcott Street.
“That building has been owned by the township for all of these years that it was utilized by the Board of Education, at various times, the Transportation Department was housed there and then their maintenance staff and maintenance equipment for all of the schools throughout the district were housed there,” she said.
“That building has been inspected and determined to be satisfactory for the storage of documents,” she said. “As you can all imagine, we have a tremendous amount of documents that the state of New Jersey requires us to keep some of those documents forever. We ran out of space a number of years ago and began to store documents off-site.”
“We anticipate that not only we’ll be able to bring those files back to store locally at the building on Amwell Road, but also be able to free up space in our other buildings that are bulging at the seams,” she said. “The Municipal Building has no space left for storage. The Police Station has no storage left and the Public Works Garage loft, which houses a great deal of our permanent records, are also at capacity. So this building will be put to use in that fashion and that is to for those records that can’t be digitally stored and destroyed.”
The proposed purchasing budget of $134,660 represents an increase of $16,415 over last year, completely due to increased postage costs, Vornlocker said.
The Finance Department’s proposed budget of $373,838, up $13,025 from last year.
That increase is due to professional consultant specialized services, CFO Rossana Gutierrez said.
Among other budget items Vornlocker and the Council discussed were:
- Township Prosecutor’s Office: Flat at $86,900.
- Municipal Court: Up $1,450 from $32,300 to $33,750.
- Human Resources: Down $950 from $137,600 to $136,650.
- Assessor: Down $6,150 to $111,550.
- Tax Collector: Up $1,173 from $15,934 to $17,107.
- Planning Board: Slat at $186,250.
- Historic Commission: $500.
- Environmental Commission: Up $525 to $17,575.
- Engineering: Flat at $141,345.
- Fire Prevention: Up 61 from $7,910 to $7,971.
- Recreation: Up $2,270 to $71,000.
- Youth Center: Up $675 from $7,867 to $8,542.
- Mayor and Council: Up $192 to $20,490.
- Township Manager: Down $29,650 to $265,000.
- Economic Development: $15,500.
- Accumulated Leave: $800,000
- Audit Services: $52,500
- Debt Service: $4,553,275, up $45,500 from last year.
- Aid to First Aid Squads: $58,000.
- General Legal Services: $600,000.
- Health Department Contract: $766,882.
- Liability Insurance and Workers’ Compensation: $1,889,697, up $392,341.
- Public Defender: $32,000.
- Social Security and other mandatory withholdings: $7,747,496, down $84,291.
The next budget hearing is set for 7 p.m. March 17.
