By Bill Sanservino
Ewing Township Council will have a new council president and vice president in 2015. Jennifer Keyes-Maloney was expected to be elected council president and David Schroth the vice president during the township’s annual Jan. 1 reorganization meeting.
Keyes-Maloney and Kevin Baxter, who has served as president for the last two years, sat down with the Ewing Observer in advance of the meeting to talk about their expectations for the upcoming year.
According to both, the first major task the council will tackle in the new year is the township budget. The main goal is to approve a spending plan that addresses the township’s needs while at the same time adhering to the state’s mandatory 2 percent cap on property tax increases.
Once the budget is presented to the council by the mayor and administration during the first quarter of 2014, the council will begin its own process of evaluating spending and revenue estimates.
“Our budget process is intensive,” Baxter said. “We speak with each department head, go through their budget requests and have them explain every request or line item.”
He said increased scrutiny by council on each department’s spending requests is necessary due to the tough economy. “Maybe there was a time years ago where they could just put ‘other’ as a line item. Well, there’s no more of that. We’ve cracked down on those things. Now they have to be more specific.”
The process will take several months, beginning with each council member poring over the budget individually even before the official budget meetings start. “Then we sit down with the department heads over a couple of days and talk with them about their wants,” Baxter said.
He pointed out that although the budget is originally crafted by the mayor and administration, it’s ultimately up to council to finalize and approve the spending plan.
“We’re the ones who hold those purse strings and get the questions from the public,” Baxter said. “We want people to understand that we live in this town too, so taxes are our number one issue as well as theirs. Our home is our number one asset, and we’re not here to budget ourselves out of our homes.”
Keyes-Maloney said in recent years, the township, under the guidance of chief financial officer Joanna Brewster, has done a good job of coming up with a budget that has held the line on taxes, while at the same time maintaining a responsible amount of surplus.
“There are guidelines that come out through the state through local government services, and we follow those best practices,” Keyes-Malone said. “That’s why we haven’t seen a diminishment in our state aid.”
She said that in order to stay under the 2 percent cap, the council needs to be smart about the allocation of funds. “For example, sometimes there are things you would love to be able to do in this year, but you have to realize that you may not be able to do it right now, but you’ll look at it going forward.”
The township’s philosophy on the budget has been recognized by bond rating companies. Last year Standard & Poor’s upgraded the township’s credit rating to AA — up two notches from A plus. Ultimately, this saves town money, because the higher the bond rating, the less money the township pays in interest on the money it borrows through the issuance of municipal bonds.
“Because of the work of our CFO, who has made sure that we’re staying within the CAP and that our surplus is where it needs to be, our bond rating is very good and it’s getting better all the time,” Keyes-Maloney said.
One issue that’s always a “delicate dance” is a decision on how much surplus the township should retain in the budget. For many elected officials, it’s tempting to use a large amount of surplus to mitigate a tax increase. The danger is that a depleted surplus leaves no money in case of emergencies. It also creates a situation where that revenue needs to be accounted for in the following year.
Keyes-Maloney said that the council recently talked about the issue of surplus with the township’s auditor.
“Our auditor was just in to talk about our annual audit report,” she said. “He told us that in the area we live in, they’re seeing towns go as low as low as 5 percent (surplus), which is dramatically low. We’re at 15 percent, which is where I think we need to be.”
“Is that tough at times? Absolutely,” Keyes-Maloney said. “It’s that balance of what can we do within the budget so that we aren’t pulling from surplus. If you drain your surplus to nothingness you run the risk of not having something when you need it for the rainy day, an unexpected occurrence, or those instances where say, snow removal costs exceed what you expected, like we had last year.”
Keeping the bond rating as high as possible is important, especially when borrowing for big-ticket items, Keyes-Maloney said. “A fire truck, for example, costs $500,000 to $1 million. You have to bond for that, and your ability to borrow at a better rate really matters when you look at stuff like that.”
Aside from the budget, another area Keyes-Maloney said Ewing will concentrate on in 2015 is working with the Green Team to continue the town’s sustainability efforts. In 2013, for the first time, Ewing received bronze-level certification from Sustainable Jersey for its green efforts. Last year, the township continued those efforts by using environmentally friendly materials in renovations at town hall, and also conducting a visioning study to plan for future sustainability.
Keyes-Maloney said there was also talk about creating welcome packet for people moving into town. “Sometimes folks moving here don’t know where to go if they need a baker or a dentist, for example. Or they’re not sure about what days trash collection happens.” The town is looking to create an online and paper versions of the package.
Baxter said one of the challenges in the coming year is keeping up the momentum the town has built. Over the past few years Ewing has been a hot spot in Mercer County, thanks, in part, to the success of Frontier Airlines at Trenton-Mercer Airport, the redevelopment of the General Motors site, and the relocation of a number of major companies into town.
“Of course GM is the major thing, but we have to decide what’s next,” Baxter said, adding that officials need to keep on top of N.J. Transit to lobby it to tie the rail line from the West Trenton train station north to New York city. “That’s a big goal.”
“If you look at what has happened in Ewing over the last two years, our town is leaps and bounds ahead of other towns,” Keyes-Maloney said. “There’s some amazing things. We have huge corporations that are making their home here. We’re redeveloping a parcel of land that sat fallow for almost 20 years. That’s exciting. They may not be sexy things that attract headlines in newspapers, I can admit that fully, but these are the kind of things that make a township great in the long run.”
Keyes-Maloney also said that Ewing residents need to be cheerleaders for their town. “I think sometime Ewing doesn’t see itself in the bright light that it has on it. We are just as good as Lawrence or Hamilton or the other towns in the county, and sometimes I think we forget that.”
,
