{"id":8081,"date":"2014-11-06T15:40:31","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T20:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=8081"},"modified":"2014-11-06T15:40:39","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T20:40:39","slug":"e-marlborough-looks-at-additional-hike-in-emergency-service-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=8081","title":{"rendered":"E. Marlborough looks at additional hike in emergency service tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disagreement over workman\u2019s comp payments; main tax rate to hold steady<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Karen Cresta<\/strong>, Correspondent, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"FireProtection\"<\/a>EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2013 A rare township Board of Supervisors\u2019 meeting on a Wednesday night, as the township building was needed Monday night for election day preparations, much of the focus of the meeting was on a possible hike of the emergency services tax.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s election saw State Rep. Chris Ross win his 158th<\/sup> District seat back\u00a0 just weeks after being placed on the ballot to replace township Board of Supervisors\u2019 chair Cuyler Walker. Walker cited \u201cpersonal reasons\u201d for his Sept. 26 withdrawal from the race, but has continued his role in township government.<\/p>\n

It was a role that found him in some disagreement with at least one of his colleagues, Robert Weer, over whether an increased fire tax should also cover workman\u2019s compensation insurance for volunteer firefighters at Po-Mar-Lin and Longwood fire companies, as supervisors discussed an increase of the fire tax from .65 mils to .75 mils for 2015.<\/p>\n

Weer argued that the tax should not pay for the insurance, while Walker plainly felt otherwise. Weer wanted to clarify that workman\u2019s compensation should not be taken from the increased fire tax since it is budgeted in the general fund\u2019s expense portion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it\u2019s a double taxation,\u201d Weer said.<\/p>\n

Walker said his recollection was that contrary to Weer\u2019s position not to take workman\u2019s compensation from the fire tax, it was decided it was appropriate to fund it from the tax since it was \u201cdirectly related to taxpayers\u2019 costs associated with fire protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jane Laslo, Township Manager, indicated she didn\u2019t think it ever was taken directly from the fire tax but would need to check on it and if so it could be corrected.\u00a0 Walker agreed that since the tax is only being paid once it should be accounted for once in the budget either in the general fund or the fire tax.<\/p>\n

Walker ended the debate noting that the budget is not yet final and that decisions can be made when all of the questions have been answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s agree that what we are asking for is more information before making a decision on the budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laslo\u2019s request to make public notice of the increased mil was unanimously approved.\u00a0\u00a0 More information regarding the source of workman\u2019s compensation would be obtained and discussed next month.<\/p>\n

The fire tax, used for fire rescue only, does not include emergency management services, ambulatory services, or fire hydrants.<\/p>\n

The rest of the budget discussion was smoother, as again the township will not need to raise the general use tax rate.<\/p>\n

Laslo announced that there was no change in the general fund township rate proposed. She was surprised that despite the number of appeals and changes in tax assessments, it would remain the same at 1.05 mil.\u00a0 There was an increase in property transfer taxes this year so far to make the total $279,000 and there were still two more months to go.\u00a0 Also, open space at .2 mil and the library tax at .183 mil would not change from the previous year\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

In other township business, the contract for Ocean Port to supply road salt for the 2014-2015 winter season was approved.\u00a0 Ocean Port was the low bidder despite an increase of approximately $2 per ton from last year.\u00a0 They still remained approximately $10 per ton below other bidders.<\/p>\n

Also approved was the bid to do the Phase 1 improvements to Unionville Park that was opened in September.\u00a0 This would include paving and landscaping.\u00a0 Jim Hatfield, Township Engineer, explained that the low bid would be approved contingent upon an additional insurance rider.\u00a0 The bid was slightly lower than the estimated $84,500 for Phase 1 of the supplemental improvements.\u00a0 The other two bids were higher by $20,000 (+\/-) and the additional two bids were much higher than that.<\/p>\n

Lt. Richard D\u2019Ambrosio of the Avondale State Police gave the annual police report. D\u2019Ambrosio reviewed the high number of calls received from the township.\u00a0 Over the past 90 days, 262 calls were received.\u00a0 Of those calls, 33 were car crashes and 22 were considered reportable due to injury or car tows.\u00a0 The car crashes were primarily on US-1 near the Longwood area attributed to the increase in population and traffic.<\/p>\n

The township had a total of 41 criminal incidents including three assaults, five burglaries and five drug arrests.\u00a0 \u00a0The highest of incidents were related to 24 thefts in which 16 were retail thefts at Walmart.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Ambrosio emphasized that with the holidays approaching it is important for residents to be careful of package delivery because of thefts.\u00a0 It helps to leave\u00a0 notes on front doors to have drivers deliver packages to the backs of homes.\u00a0 It is also important to hand deliver monetary gifts designated for trash men or postmen \u00a0to avoid thieves who may intercept the money if left in mailboxes or trash cans.\u00a0 He urged residents to keep an eye out for each other and if something is seen out of the ordinary to call the police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disagreement over workman\u2019s comp payments; main tax rate to hold steady By Karen Cresta, Correspondent, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2013 A rare township Board of Supervisors\u2019 meeting on a Wednesday night, as the township building was needed Monday night for election day preparations, much of the focus of the meeting was on a possible hike […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[101,255,4903,4904,1628,1629],"class_list":["post-8081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-board-of-supervisors","tag-east-marlborough","tag-emergency-services-tax","tag-fire-companies","tag-longwood","tag-po-mar-lin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8082,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8081\/revisions\/8082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}