The East Marlborough Township Board of Supervisors recently approved ACH payments, appropriated money for a new police vehicle, and heard about 2024 pension plans, among other things, at the township meeting.

The supervisors voted to approve Resolution 2023-24, authorizing the use of automated clearinghouse payments (ACH) instead of wire transfers.

“The mail system’s not very reliable, and payments weren’t being processed,” said township manager Neil Lovekin. “This allows the township to do ACH, just like we would do through the banks, and eliminate the U.S. mail unreliability and limit the amount of human error.”

Another benefit would be with making payroll easier.

“Our accounting system does not handle direct deposits to our payroll system,” Lovekin said. “So we’ve been using wire transfer.”

Township Solicitor Ryan Jennings said the board could move forward with using ACH to pay bills as long as it’s consistent with the township’s payment authorization policies.

In other business, the board approved adding additional funds to the 2023 budget for a new police vehicle. Resolution 2023-25 would allow for the board to cover the current cost of a retrofitted 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe to replace the 2016 Ford Explorer that was totaled in a June 28 accident.

“This is to replace the vehicle that (Chief Robert) Clarke was in,” Lovekin said. “The insurance company totaled it.”

The supervisors voted to make a supplemental budget appropriation of $66,130.75 to cover the purchase and retrofit.

Also at the Sept. 11 meeting, the supervisors heard about the 2024 minimum municipal obligations (MMO) to the township’s pension plans. The non-uniformed pension plan MMO would be $86,835. And the uniformed MMO would be $34,595.

Lovekin said the MMO figures were in line with the budget.