HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP: Officials move surplus funds to 2017 capital improvements

By Frank Mustac, Contributor
More than $2.3 million of unused money from previous years is being moved into the capital improvement budget for 2017, funding a number of municipal projects and purchases along the way., Township committee members unanimously voted to introduce an ordinance to reappropriate the funds, part of which come from capital improvements projects initiated as far back 2008., Approximately $1 million will go toward the 2017 road program in the township and another roughly $960,000 will be spent on chip seal road maintenance., Officials said about $163,000 will also be disbursed for a new combination police communications and cell tower and $175,000 will go to the purchase of a bucket truck for the department of pubic works., “This ordinance repurposes money that had been borrowed and will not be expended, in part, based on bids coming in lower (than anticipated),” Mayor Kevin Kuchinski said during the Feb. 27 Township Committee meeting., Township Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Elaine Cruickshank-Borges explained that the funds were authorized for previous capital improvement projects. The projects were all completed, she said, but money remained because the project bids came in lower than what was authorized by the township for the projects., About half the funds, approximately $1.1 million, comes from unspent funds from completed road projects., “This is all leftover unused money,” Committeewoman Vanessa Sandom said. “We’ve had a number of ordinances this year and last year that do exactly this.”, Township Administrator Paul Pogorzelski said the previous capital projects came in under budget because of the process used to estimate project costs prior to making bids available to contractors., “The capital process for prior years has always been we do a thumbnail estimate, which would inevitably result in a much higher cost than we know, because we have no design and materials,” Pogorzelski said. “We can’t engage in engineering before we do a bond ordinance … so what we do now is we’re doing the engineering ahead before we actually do the bond ordinance. So future bond ordinances will be based on actual engineering processes.”, Committeeman John Hart expressed concern that the township has been paying interest on unused money from previously authorized bonds., “I completely agree with you,” the mayor responded. “That’s why we changed the process last year, and we are now doing design work on our biggest expenditures a year in advance so we can get more accurate estimates.”, “We got lucky with oil pricing and asphalt pricing last year, so we were able to return money that was put in the 2016 budget and we’re able to immediately reuse it for 2017,” Mayor Kuchinski continued., A second reading of the ordinance and a public hearing on the matter is scheduled for March 13, after which the Township Committee will likely vote on the measure.