The Moore Township Board of Supervisors met at 7 p.m. on December 1 via zoom to discuss the 2021 Budget and a Jake Brake restriction request.
Last month the Board of Supervisors received a request for a Jake Brake restriction along State Route 946 within the vicinity of Mink Road. Township Engineer Kevin Horvath did some additional research, including possible expenses associated with it.
“According to our traffic engineers, PennDOT does not charge for the study needed to determine whether or not that prohibition is permissible,” Horvath said. “General guidelines that PennDot sets forth for Jake Brake are related to the slope. It states that a road with an average grade in excess of four percent within any 500-foot section of highway may not have that prohibition. So for a steeper sloping road, they don’t want that prohibition because that’s when a Jake Brake is actually necessary. In this case, I did a basic desktop evaluation using Google Earth and some publicly available information.” Horvath evaluated a nearly 1,500-foot segment of 946, beginning 300 feet east of Mink Road and extending west to Teel Road and found the average road grade appears to exceed five percent. Based on his desktop evaluation, he does not believe the Jake Brake restriction would be permissible on that section of the road. Horvath stated that ultimately the determination would be up to PennDOT.
The Board of Supervisors voted to move forward with sending a letter to PennDOT to start the Jake Brake restriction study.
Township Manager Nicholas Steiner voiced some of the topics discussed at their budget workshop meeting.
“Some of the major budget items for this year include funding for a new police vehicle, a new zoning vehicle, and then we moved the current vehicle over to the recreation center,” Steiner said. “Some of the other items are $50,000 for MS4 infrastructure [for township stormwater management improvements, mandated but not funded by the state]. This year with COVID, the income is coming in now about where it was last year. Usually, it’s about a one percent increase. So I did a .8 percent increase with the uncertainties of not knowing what will happen.”
The budget also has $15,000 in it designed for improvements to both the recreation center and Edelman Schoolhouse. An additional $3,700 will be spent on the school from its spending account.
There is no property tax increase in the proposed 2021 budget, and the real estate tax rate is expected to remain the same, at six mills.
The proposed 2021 budget is open for public inspection at the Moore Township Municipal Building during regular business hours.
The 2021 final budget will be formally adopted at a special meeting of the Moore Township Board of Supervisors held on December 29 at 5:30 p.m. at the Moore Township Municipal Building.
