Township to discuss billing of debt

The Township will discuss the billing practices at its next meeting, Bruschi said. The Township Committee and Mayor Phyllis Marchand will meet on Oct. 20, according to the Township website.

Deputy Township Mayor Bernard Miller said in an interview that he had not yet seen the full resolution and could not comment on specifics.

Borough Councilman Roger Martindell — who initiated the proposal — said in an interview that the Township owes the Borough roughly $3.8 million. The majority of the debt stems from the Township’s failure to pay its portion of joint-capital projects, such as recreation facilities and sewer-system operation.

“It’s long overdue that the Borough joins the 21st century in commercial practices,” he said, explaining that there had been only an informal billing practice between the Borough and the Township until now, but that the Township has failed to pay a significant number of these informal bills.

Miller said that that he “could not verify the figures” pertaining to the amount of money owed to the Borough, noting that they are a “moving target.”

Part of the problem was that much of the billing from the Borough to the Township was insufficiently documented, he explained.

“We had to go back and ask [the Borough] to provide the documentation,” he said.

The new resolution calls for a listed record of all invoices to be maintained and sent to the Township on the 10th of each month. The Borough expects payment from the Township within 90 days of notification. Interest would begin to accumulate if payment had not been received at that point.

Martindell explained that the interest rate would be equal to the average rate of the bonds used to finance the original projects.

He added that the Borough was owed roughly $1 million as of 2006, none of which had been repaid as of the most recent council meeting. Because the Borough has continued to pay the interest on the bonds that were sold to pay for the projects two years ago, he said, it has expended about $100,000 in taxpayers’ money paying the Township’s share of the interest on the bonds.

Councilman Andrew Koontz stressed that the resolution is a “housekeeping measure” for the Borough to clarify its own method of record keeping.

“There was a breakdown between the finance departments of both communities when both neglected to bill each other for capital projects undertaken by the other community,” he explained.

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Koontz said he believes that negligence was evident on both the part of the Borough and the Township, and that both are to blame for the current disorganized state of affairs. He added that the resolution goes into effect immediately and will from this point forward dictate Borough administrative policy with regard to financial dealings with the Township.

If the Township still does not pay the current debt, there are “avenues of redress” that the Borough will consider, Koontz said.