Also, event funding creates major discussion during the meeting
Medford Township Council adopted the 2017 municipal budget last week. The approved budget was highlighted by no local purpose tax increase for the fifth year in a row.
The budget includes the hiring two new police officers, promoting officers to the rank of lieutenant and sergeant, hiring new firefighters and road improvements. The total budget is more than $20 million.
Council also set time aside last week to talk about funding public festivals and events that happen in the township. The council set aside some money in the budget to help fund up to 50 percent of events such as the Halloween Festival and the Apple Festival.
“Is the Oktoberfest making a profit?” Councilman Chris Buoni asked. “Because I think that the township should be contributing on that end. We are doing this not to put an extra strain on all of the events, not just the Oktoberfest We are doing this to avoid the strain of fundraising and not to supplement a profit margin for an event or organization that is not a government entity because we then would be using taxpayer dollars to fund a nonprofit essentially, and I would have an issue with that.”
Deputy Mayor Bradley Denn countered with the argument about the purpose these events do for the township.
“Most of the costs from the fundraising are associated with the cost of public safety and cleanup,” Denn said. “Most of the groups were burning themselves out from all the fundraising. We could just alleviate that burden on them. They are doing it for the benefit of the citizens rather than trying to generate revenue for themselves.”
The Medford Oktoberfest is organized by the Medford Business Association. Medford Business Association First Vice President Theresa Freedman said the event was free and that sometimes they took a loss of a couple of thousand dollars on the event and sometimes they did turn a profit.
“I think it is unfortunate to say that because we sell beer or generate an income stream that we should not receive funding because how you anticipate you use your funds. Every organization does something to generate some type of income stream. Whether it is to pay somebody else or pay for operating costs or the next event coming up,” she said.
Freedman also mentioned the MBA stopped the Oktoberfest event because the costs were exceeding the income.
No official action was taken on if council would amend its decision to funding the events.
