Lacey Seeks Inspectors As Shared Services With Waretown Ceases

Lacey is currently seeking new plumbing and electrical inspectors for part-time work, as the shared service contract between the township and Waretown will cease come October.

Waretown will now be working with Barnegat. Since Barnegat is the lead for Waretown, Waretown cannot be the host for Lacey because it is illegal in the eyes of community affairs, Township Administrator Veronica Laureigh said.

“Waretown cannot be the lead and act as a middle man,” she said.

An electrician resigned from Waretown so Lacey has not been supplied with one for at least the last 20 months, Laureigh said. The township has already been using part-time electricians.

Waretown and Barnegat began to share the same township administrator in April 2010 but Mayor Gary Quinn said the main reason for the change was because Barnegat has a large staff of inspectors. The move was more beneficial to Waretown and the taxpayers, he said.

A lot of towns are teaming up with others to save money during these difficult economic times, making it more difficult to find an effective shared service deal, Quinn said.

Lacey looked into entering shared services with Stafford Township but found that they would lose $50,000 to $90,000, Quinn said. Stafford hosts several other towns, collects the fees, and gets 10 percent of those fees to cover township costs.

The contract between Waretown and Lacey worked well because the two towns split the costs 50/50, Quinn said.

Lacey Township also looked into shared services with Berkeley, who is the host for Ocean Gate and several other towns, Quinn said.

“In the overall scheme of things, it makes sense to use part-timers,” he said. “We will certainly revisit shared services in the future because we would split the bill rather than paying for the whole service ourselves.”

Lacey Township is now looking for plumbing and electrical sub-code officials and inspectors. The position would be part-time, 21 hours a week at $27 to $30 an hour.

Candidates must have a state license for their particular specialty.

“We prefer Lacey residents because we’re a home hiring community,” Laureigh said.

The township is willing to look outside of the community if they do not find adequate candidates from within Lacey, she said.