Shamong Township’s court administrator will keep her post, albeit with reduced hours.
After discussing a potential shared services agreement with Medford Lakes for municipal court operations, the township committee decided at its Tuesday, July 10 meeting to make staff adjustments within the township.
The in-house changes will roughly save the township the same amount of money per year, $40,000.
“Medford Lakes’ proposal would have also eliminated our court administrator’s job and moved all municipal court operations to the Medford Lakes municipal building,” said township administrator Sue Onorato. “After months of evaluating other alternatives, the committee has decided to reduce our court administrator’s scheduled hours from 30 to 28, and to further reallocate some of those hours within other departments in the township.”
The changes will be monitored, she said, to make sure that all needs within the township are still being met.
No more newsletters
There will be no more newsletters sent to residents in an effort to reduce overall costs.
Information is available online at www.shamong.net and email updates are also sent to residents who have signed up.
In the event of an emergency, said Onorato, “the township can activate the reverse 9–1–1 system to notify residents via phone call.”
“We also need to consider the budgetary restraints that have been placed on all municipalities within the state of New Jersey since Shamong Township has lost $1,648 in state funding since 2001 — that a significant number to any town and has greatly impacted our budget and eroded our surplus forcing the township into cutting cost and reducing staff.” she added.
A successful volunteer
Each year, the township provides the Church of the Holy Eucharist in Tabernacle two nominations for Volunteer of the Year.
Ultimately, the church makes the decision, and the results are provided to the township roughly a week prior to “Indian Mills / Shamong Night,” which is being held on Friday, July 27 this year at the Pine Barrens Festival.
“The committee nominated Gary Vincequera for 17 years of voluntary service to the residents for his service to the Joint Land Use Board and John Volpa who, not only has taught the children of Shamong Township for 27 years, but has also volunteered his time in many ways such as obtaining grant funding and organizing professionals and volunteers to plan, create, update and maintain walking and biking trails in Shamong Township,” said Onorato. “He also spearheaded and ran the very successful Camp Ocky, sixth-grade overnight trip, which gives students and parents a better understanding of the environment we live in for roughly 20 years.”
Other business
Joseph Rayman, a certified tax assessor, was appointed deputy tax assessor at the meeting.
According to Onorato, he recently served the township during the re-assessment project and took over the tax assessor’s role while he was serving the U.S. Marine Reserves.
Ordinance 2012–07 was tabled due to an error in the draft. It will be reconsidered at the Aug. 7 meeting. The ordinance will allow the township to charge for calculating a tax lien on the third request of the year, as provided in the state statute, said Onorato.
Shamong has submitted grants to N.J. DOT in 2011 and 2012 for the purposes of repairing and resurfacing Oak Shade Road between Indian Mills Road and the Tabernacle Township line.
“Burlington County owns and maintains Oak Shade Road from Waterford Township line to Indian Mills Road,” she explained.
The next Shamong Township committee meeting is slated for Tuesday, Aug. 7 at the municipal center, 105 Willow Grove Road, at 7:30 p.m.
