VILLAS – If you want to attend Lower Township’s and Lower Cape May Regional School District’s budget meetings, you will have to be in two places at the same time.
Both Lower Township and the regional school district have scheduled special budget meetings March 30, the township’s beginning at 6 p.m. and the school district at 7 p.m.
The township’s meeting is likely to run past 7 p.m.
At a March 2 Lower Township Council meeting, Mayor Michael Beck said the township’s budget meeting would not be the “normal dog and pony show we’ve had through the years where you get the clichés “we going to go back and cut this or cut that.’”
“We need to see where we are bleeding, where the hole in the boat is,” he continued. “ We’re going to tear it apart.”
Beck said he hoped many members of the public would attend the meeting and “watch as we do this.”
He said the township was not to the only municipality facing tough financial circumstances. Beck said when he took office in January, the township was a couple of hundred thousand dollars over the budget cap.
“We’ve worked pretty hard to get back under the cap,” he said. “We made some pretty tough decisions the first couple of weeks we were in here.”
The cap has crept back up, said the mayor. He said residents needed to see that the township was “locked in” to certain budget items.
Council will introduce the budget at its next meeting March 16. Beck said the March 30 meeting would allow the most time for questions from the public.
Township Auditor Leon Costello will attend both meetings.
Lower Cape May Regional School District moved its budget hearing from its normal meeting date of March 26 to the special meeting date of March 30.
Lower Township – The days of the subscription lifestyle are here. Just bought that new house? To be able to use the bathroom is $12.95 a month. You want to cook in your new kitchen? It’ll cost you $14.95 a month….
