May 6, 2013 Middletown Township Committee Meeting

This past Monday night the Middletown Township Committee came together once again for it's monthly workshop meeting,at this workshop meeting the Committee held a few public hearings for the introduction of the 2013 Municipal Budget, the 2013 Solid Waste Budget and on Bond Ordinance #2013-3087 which authorizes the borrowing of $1.5M for the construction of an artificial turf sports field on Middletown Township Board of Education property and other various sports field improvements around the district.

The meeting was held in the Court House of Town Hall as opposed to the cramped little conference room next to the Clerk's office as I had hoped the it would be and lasted a little over 90 minutes with the budget hearing taking up the first 50 minutes. Afterwards it was announced that a date for the adoption of the budget would scheduled for a future meeting.

After no one spoke regarding the Municipal Solid Waste Budget, a hearing was for Bond Ordinance #2013-8037 was conducted. As I posted earlier, Linda Baum asked if a cost analysis was done and if it available for see and it was stated by Mayor Osmosis (Gerry Scharfenberger) that their was nothing on paper, it was all done in their heads. The meeting quickly moved on from there with the other items on the agenda.

Committee Comments followed by comments from the public (my favorite part of these meetings) begins at the 1:05 mark of the video and as usual is somewhat enlightening and shouldn't be missed.





As always, you can download a copy of the meeting agenda that contains the discussion items and the proposed resolutions and ordinances that were voted on or presented during the meeting. A box around an item is a link, bringing you further into the document to that resolution or ordinance. At the end of the resolution there will be a link bringing you back to the agenda. Attached to this agenda is also the monthly bill list, so that everyone can see how the Township is spending our tax dollars

Speaking Of Budgets, Middletown's Is Done Through Osmosis

Back on Reorganization day in January, one of the many things that Gerry Scharfenberger addressed during is speech after being re-appointed as Mayor of Middeltown, was the upcoming budget process.

He told the crowd in attendance that the Township was facing a huge budget shortfall of nearly $7 million but not to worry because there was a plan on how to deal with it.

He state that even though ..."no one here is a super expert on finances by profession but if you sorta do it by osmosis..."

Which I suppose means, that if you sit around long enough thinking about it, to let it sink in you become a expert in how to deal with a $7 million deficit without a Chief Financial Officer to help in the process! Unfortunately however the process of osomsis isn't good enough now that budgets need to be submitted to Trenton by the end of the month.

Where's a Finance Committee when you need it? Oh that's right, Middeltown doesn't need one because Gerry and the boys can handle the budget process on their own.