Shrewsbury Gets Blizzard Cash and Other Council Notes

Shrewsbury will earn back 75 percent of the costs spent on snow-removal efforts tied to this past winter’s snowstorms, borough Business Administrator Tom Seaman informed the council at Monday night’s meeting.

The funding, $14,476 for the borough’s department of public works, and another $1,261 for Shrewsbury Police Department, will come from FEMA, a result of the borough’s successful application for emergency funding.

Though assurances have been provided, Seaman was quick to say that funding will come, but that the check has yet to find its way into the hands of the Shrewsbury officials.

In other news, Shrewsbury was forced to delay the introduction of its budget as it failed to notify the public in the required 10 days prior to the meeting. The borough, which has been operating on a temporary budget of more than $5 million so far this year, approved an additional $20,260 to cover the payment of bills between this and the council’s June 20^th meeting.

“This is just so we can have a budget for line items to get bills paid,” Seaman said.

The council expects to introduce its budget at the next meeting.

Councilman Pete Meyer announced a grant award that will cover the cost of running background checks for borough employees and volunteers connected with youth sports and recreation activities in Shrewsbury.

Background checks are something the borough hasn’t done before, but decided was a decent enough idea after Shrewsbury was able to secure grant funding to pay for it for the next two years.

Seaman said the grant doesn’t have an actual total, just that the cost of running background checks will be absorbed by the state for the next two years.  After two years, however, Seaman said the borough would be required to pay for the background checks unless it can secure some other available funding.