The Evesham Town Council met via Zoom on 6/9/2020. The recording of the livestream can be viewed here: http://evesham-nj.org/index.php/mayor-council/council-meeting-videos and the agenda for the meeting can be viewed here: https://evesham.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&event_id=36.
One of the more important items discussed during the meeting was the introduction of the 2020 municipal budget, which begins at the 11:40 mark with a budget presentation by Liz Peddicord, the Director of Finance. Note that the budget is not voted on when introduced - the budget will be voted on in July. The budget reflects a small decrease in overall spending, along with a very small decrease in the amount of taxes per average family for the municipal budget.
It should be noted that only the Municipal (Town) property taxes show a slight decrease. However, your property tax bills are a combination of taxes assessed by the Township of Evesham, the Evesham Township School District,the Lenape Regional School District, the Evesham Fire Department, and Burlington County. So while town taxes are decreasing, it would appear that the other entities are increasing their tax rates, so your overall tax bill will still be going up. Only 15% of your property taxes are assess by the Township.
The presentation also provided some additional details at a high level of what additional expenses a township incurs, along with a more detailed list of current revenue losses due to Covid-19, the shutdown of various facilities and the ongoing recession. The estimated revenue losses total $1.5 million.
The budget presentation totals about 30 minutes, and discusses additional items such as grants, the surplus and PILOTs, so if you want more detailed information, I would recommend watching the presentation yourself.
Resolution 212-2020 created an 'Evesham Human Rights Advisory Council' with the goal of creating "a volunteer group of residents and public officials who will cooperate with, and make recommendations to the governing body to educate, encourage, develop, promote and strengthen respect for the human rights of the citizens of Evesham Township no matter their backgrounds, including, but not limited [to] race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, age, disability or socioeconomic status - so they may achieve their highest possible level of success."
The discussion of this resolution begins at the 48:20 mark.
There was a lot of discussion about the formation of this new advisory committee and how it came together in light of the events in the news last week, with many residents contacting their elected officials with their concerns locally. And while it seems to have been acknowledged that the committee may have come together very hastily, it was viewed as critical to establish it as soon as practical, with the acknowledgement that there may need to be some tweaking of goals and makeup of the committee in the future - that the current format wasn't 'set in stone'.
As currently set up, the advisory committee would be made up of 4 members of the public, the Mayor (or designee), the Township Manager (or designee), the Chief of Police, an Evesham Township School Board Member, 2 leaders of faith from congregations in Evesham, and one member of an organized youth athletic program. There was no mention of names of members - if it is like other advisory councils, there will be an application process announced in the near future for those wishing to serve.
Resolution 213-2020 was passed to temporarily allow relaxing existing ordinances so that restaurants in Evesham may temporarily allow outdoor dining, even if they hadn't previously been approved to serve outside.
- The Public Works Yard will be open an additional day during the week and appointments are no longer necessary.
- The Township Manager stated that the Clerical Workers union agreed to furloughs and layoffs will not be necessary, but no agreement was reached with the Public Workers union and layoffs may be forthcoming.
- All resolutions and ordinances passed by a 5-0 vote
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