Berkeley Heights Township : Township Gets $410,000 Road Grant For Kline Area

Press release from the Berkeley Heights Township:

October 27, 2021

The Township of Berkeley Heights has received $410,000 from the Fiscal Year 2022 New Jersey state Municipal Aid Grant, for road repairs to Kline Place and Fickler Place. This area of town has been in desperate need of repair, but will take much more than paving. It needs engineering, drainage installed, curbing and overall reconstruction. The Township hopes to do the work in the Spring of 2022. 

We have received questions from residents on how the Township decides which roads to pave each year, so we thought it would be appropriate to put the information here for you!

• A few years ago, the Township did a long-term road paving plan, which laid out which roads would be paved which years.
• Since January 2019, we take that list and every year before budget season, do a drive through around Town to assess each road to determine a few things:
  • Which roads on the schedule for that year actually need it; if any one road does not, it won't get paved that year because that's not a good use of taxpayer funds - to pave a road that doesn't need it when so many other roads are in desperate need.
  • Which roads, NOT on that schedule, are in the most need of paving or more drastic reconstruction and need to be moved up on the list.
  • Based on the above process, our we come up with a list of roads we want to pave each year with the known funds we will have; then a "B" list of roads we will pave if we can find/win/earn extra funds. 
• We commit at least $750,000 a year to road paving in our town budget; that does not include any grant money that we may apply for and receive, or any other form of outside funding (such as this $410,000 grant); based on the survey described above, we determine a list to give to Council each year ahead of budget season. We tentatively include grant money we think we may received each year in our internal calculations as we try to budget for that year's paving project, yet we cannot realize that money in our budget in any given year until that money is actually awarded. 
• The coast of paving roads varies from month to month, year to year. Municipalities have to "go out to bid" for projects over a certain amount of money - which means they have to put the project specs out on the open market and have companies "bid" on doing the job; we are obligated to use the lowest bidder. 
• If any bids come in lower than anticipated, we may be able to pave another road with the extra money budgeted. It's always a happy day when that happens!
• As soon as our paving plan is firmed up and funded, we put it on the Township website and update it accordingly so residents have an idea of what roads will be paved, when.

This press release was produced by the Berkeley Heights Township. The views expressed here are the author’s own.