The Sewer Bill: Despite Repeal, It's Alive and Well

In its last weeks in office the 2010 Township Committee voted to repeal a separate sewer bill in December after what officials said were numerous resident complaints. 

But the controversial accounting maneuver – believed dead and buried – is actually alive and well due to a clerical error.

Officials at a meeting Monday said they discovered that December's ordinance technically repeals entirely different legislation due to a typo. The ordinance repealed 2010-33 instead of the sewer fee separation, listed as  2010-40.

The typo means that the sewer bill had been in effect all year, unbeknownst to township employees, who informed residents that they would not have to pay the extra bill that arrived in their mailboxes in 2011 – and would be refunded if they already written a check.

"All along there has been a sewer tax," Mayor Daniel Aschenbach said.

An accounting maneuver that kept the budget pinned underneath a 4-percent property tax cap mandated last year by the state, the move peeled sewer charges out of the property tax bill. 

But the sewer fee was an unwelcome surprise last year for some residents who, seeing an extra bill in their mailbox, realized for the first time that the Cranford sewer fee is measured using property tax assessments.

Many residents have stated that they want the bill to be folded back into. Others want the sewer fee to be based on the amount of sewer use rather than property values. 

While Republican proponents said the separate sewer bill was an easy solution that retained vital municipal services and was a way to avoid substantial layoffs, its Democrat opponents say it was a temporary salve to a long-term problem, as the township would only see savings this year, and not the next.

It became notorious among residents and  a rallying cry for the opposing party during election season, Democrats Ed O’Malley and Kevin Campbell. Both became commissioners this year, creating a Democratic majority on a body once dominated by Republicans.

Under the belief that the sewer fee remained repealed this year, Aschenbach – along with Commissioners Mark Dugan, David Robinson and Ed O'Malley – have said they're in favor of creating a sewer system that charges residents based on water use instead of property tax assessment.

With the bill still in place due to the clerical error, Township Attorney Daniel McCarthy said the Township Committee had three options – and creating a use-based system is one.

Committee members also could decide to repeal that ordinance, or leave it in place and ask that residents repay the sewer bill, McCarthy said.

"Right now what you have is the same program that was in place last year period," he explained.

Township officials said plan on introducing a  billing ordinance to dicate how the sewer charge is collected at the April 25 committee meeting.