Interest Expenses By Joseph A. Lypowy

   Joseph Garvey, Chairman of the Dover Township Recreation Commission, had a letter published in the Asbury Park Press on April 29, explaining the position of his committee regarding the expenditure of $ 2.5 million for artificial turf on three athletic fields. Mr. Garvey makes what seems to be on the surface a convincing argument, but further insight into the matter brings up some serious questions. First off, the public should be aware that Mr.Garvey is the spouse of Toms River Board of Education Commissioner Linda Garvey and the turf deal involves both the Township and Board of Ed..
The strongest argument that Garvey makes, he claims that the school system will save $100,000 per year in maintenance costs, but he never takes into consideration the interest on the bond. If you take the $2.5 million bond and multiply that by 4%, that will give you the approximate yearly cost of $100,000 in interest on the project. This alone will cancel out any maintenance benefit. Then you have other costs on top of that such as bonding and legal fees. One pundit brought up the possibility of added insurance costs due to a greater injury exposure.
   Currently, the township’s Pop Warner organizations utilize the high school fields and have been doing this for many years. This is a very good cost effective arrangement and has proven to work. The other argument Garvey makes is that soccer and field hockey teams can use the same fields too, but why would they need to when they already have their own dedicated fields?
   The township already has an open space program, why not just use one of the open space acquisitions, put a few more fields on them, and get twice the bang for your buck This way you would have to bond only once for $2.5 mil. instead of twice, thus saving $100,000 yearly in bonding interest.
If Mr. Garvey is truly interested in saving the Township and Board of Education money, he might want to question why the Board is paying $ 1 million yearly in interest on a $18 million bond surplus.

 Depreciation Expenses by Joseph A. Lypowy

   One of the issues that the taxpayers of Dover Township did not have the opportunity to digest in regards to the artificial turf resurfacing of the three athletic fields is the question and expense of depreciation and depletion. We heard a lot of propaganda talking about increased use and maintenance cost reduction, but I don’t recall anyone addressing the cost of depreciation which is probably the largest expense. According to the New York State and New Jersey government published guidelines for depreciation and amortization, they both suggest a five year depreciation on artificial turf fields.
   According to an article entitled “Turf wars” by Dave Parker a pro-synthetic turf industry advocate states “the industry standard for expected years of use for synthetic turf is 10 years, maintenance is $5,000/year per field, including the cost of a power sweeper pro-rated over 10 years“. Therefore if you divide the capital installation cost of $1,500,000 by the 10 year lifespan it will give you a yearly depreciation amortization cost of $150.000 per year. This is assuming that the industry projections are correct, the actual amortization rate is probably somewhere in between the state 5 year state rate and the industry rate, which could bring the annual depreciation rate as high as $300,000 per year. Lets take a theoretical 8 year amortization rate of $187.500 per year plus a estimated 4% bonding interest cost of $60,000 per year, plus a $15,000 maintenance cost per year, will give you a yearly cost of $262,000 annually versus the current annual maintenance cost $140,000 according to the chairman of the Dover Township Recreation Commission.
   Abraham Lincoln said government is “of the people, by the people, for the people”, and the Ocean County Observer suggested that the people should have had an opportunity to vote on this matter in a referendum, but of coarse there was no time for that, because Toms River North’s football field is going to be wrecked by using it to host the RiverFest carnival and it needs to be fixed before the next school season.