Butler waiting to hear of grant program's fate

Wednesday, March 30, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI

BUTLER- Budget cuts in Washington might be trickling down to Butler's streets a little sooner than anticipated as the federally funded Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program is on the congressional chopping block — and what's become a regular source of grant money to improve the borough's infrastructure may soon be eliminated.

The program has been very kind to Butler over the past decade. Since 2000, the borough has received 10 grants totaling $985,000.

These grants have gone to provide funding for a variety of infrastructure projects such as the 2002 installation of the Main Street water main and 2007's $80,000 replacement of the Carey Avenue firehouse roof.

The money's not free — the borough often puts up a percentage of the projects' final price tags — but it has been consistent.

At the Borough Council's March 15 meeting, however, Administrator Jim Lampmann told the governing body that the federal faucet might be dry and that funding for the program might disappear entirely in 2011.

'These are not superfluous projects'

Sabine Von Aulock, the director of the Morris County Division of Community Development, said that in 2010, Morris County received $2,453,876 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the CDBG program.

What the 2011 number will be will vary drastically depending on what budget Congress passes, and several proposals are currently being batted around the Capitol.

The grants are awarded in four categories: improvements (for municipal infrastructure), services (which fund adult daycares, battered women's programs, etc.), facilities (such as public health facilities), and housing (which funds the county's Homeowner Rehab Program, among other things).

Von Aulock said that the 2010 monies ended up funding 31 projects: 12 were for municipalities, while 19 were for nonprofits.

However, the House of Representatives has, in its zeal to cut the budget, taken aim at the CDBG, which is required to serve low- and moderate-income areas, and proposed a 66-percent funding cut.

It's likely that in this scenario, Morris County would receive just under $835,000. Of last year's projects, only 11 would have been able to be funded with that money.

Ironically, N.J. Congressman Scott Garrett (R-5) has proposed eliminating the funding outright, which is the doomsday scenario for Von Aulock.

The U.S. Senate has made its own proposal, however, that would only cut funding 12 percent and would likely leave the county with close to $2.15 million to dole out.

"There's all kinds of speculation, and I cannot pin my hopes anywhere. But these are not superfluous projects," Von Aulock said. "It's water mains and roads, and towns are relying on these."

"(The funding cut) may be a deal-breaker for them," she said.

'The work needs to be done'

Lampmann said that he, along with Borough Engineer Paul Darmofalski, made a presentation on March 7 at the Morris County Division of Community Development in the hopes of securing nearly $80,000 in grants, but that this was before he knew the funding might vanish.

"We don't know where that stands," he told the council, "(but) the hope is that our presentation wasn't wasted for a program that's going to go away."

The grants, if the borough receives them, would go toward relining the very old (and now leaking) brick manholes in the neighborhood of Arch and Main streets; the project is important, he told Suburban Trends, because sealing off the manholes stops fresh water from infiltrating into the sewer system.

"Any groundwater that leaks into the system is fresh water, and you're paying to treat that," he said. "If you can stop that (leakage), that's money down the road you're saving."

That is, of course, if the borough can afford to fix it.

Although the council has long talked about the project, other issues have been more pressing. Last year, $80,000 in CDBG money went toward replacing the water main on Bartholdi Avenue, a project that took precedence because Butler's century-old water lines continually cause water pressure issues.

Lampmann said that the federal cuts will directly impact Butler taxpayers. Officials over recent years have rued the decisions of prior councils to not keep up on infrastructure improvements, and they don't plan to follow suit.

"This (money) will have to be raised through a bond, and that's the route that we'll go. The work needs to be done, and it will have an impact on taxes," he said. "You don't want to continue going along without making (infrastructure) improvements."

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com