City of Burlington, NJ Article IV Municipal Clerk

§ 2-14 Appointment; powers and duties.

The Municipal Clerk shall be appointed by the Common Council and shall serve as the Secretary to the Common Council with the following responsibilities:

A. Attend all Common Council meetings;

B. Provide for the taking of and preparation of appropriate minutes of all Council meetings;

C. Compile, index and preserve all ordinances, resolutions, contracts, minutes and offer documents and papers to which the City is a party and which require retention as public records;

D. Prepare agendas for all Council meetings and send copies of all pertinent materials in advance of premeeting conferences to Council members and members elect, the Mayor and Business Administrator and other affected City officials;

E. Prepare and publish notices, ordinances and other matters as required by the Charter or general law in sufficient number to meet the requirements of the public;

F. Have custody of the City Seal and affix it to appropriate documents without charge;

G. Receive and transmit all communications to or on behalf of the Common Council;

H. Charge and receive for use of the City such fees for searches, transcripts and copies of official records as Council shall authorize;

I. Perform such other duties as Council may assign and as are prescribed by general law and the Charter.

§ 2-15 Deputy Municipal Clerk.

There is created the position of Deputy Municipal Clerk.

§ 2-15.1 Fees to be charged for document requests.

[Added 7-13-2021 by Ord. No. 19-2021]

A. The Clerk is authorized to adopt the use of the form attached to this chapter[1] for use by any person requesting documents pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1.1 et seq. to facilitate the production of documents, provided that the failure to utilize the form shall not be grounds to deny any request for documents under the Open Public Records Act. All such requests will be handled in accordance with the provisions of N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 et seq.;

[1] Editor's Notes: Said form is on file in the office of the Municipal Clerk.

B. The Clerk may charge $0.05 for any letter sized (8 1/2 inches by 11 inches) copy, $0.07 for any legal sized (11 inches by 14 inches) copy and $0.50 for any color copy of any document to the requestor of such document, and in the event the actual cost of duplication exceeds any of these sums, the charge shall reflect the actual cost incurred by the Clerk, including the cost of any digital media or portable electronic storage media to convey the documents or data to the provider;

C. The Clerk is further authorized to charge a reasonable special charge for the extensive use of information, technology or labor or personnel cost incurred for the programming, clerical and supervisory assistance required, or both, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5d. In such cases extraordinary expenditures shall be charged a rate of $25 to $30 per hour, depending upon the specific individual who is delegated the responsibility for that work. Administrative time/non-clerical time involved in such extraordinary expenditure shall be charged at the actual salary rate, depending upon the specific individual who is charged with the responsibility for that work. These calculations are based upon the salary, pension, health, social security payments and other benefits that are paid on behalf of the aforementioned individuals by Burlington City. The City Clerk shall notify the requestor of the imposition of a special service charge prior to undertaking the response to the request pursuant to N.J.S.A. 47:1A-1 et seq.;

D. The charge for the Master Plan shall be $60;

E. The charge for the Zoning Map, Road Map or any other engineering plan 24 inches by 36 inches or larger shall be $3 per sheet;

F. Where a bank, mortgage company, or servicing agency requests duplicate tax bills, there shall be a charge of $5 for the first duplicate and $25 for each subsequent duplicate tax bill;

G. A duplicate copy of tax sale certificate shall be $100;

H. There shall be a fee charged in the amount of $25 for a certificate or redemption issued by the Burlington City Tax Office to remove a lien held against a property when the original certificate cannot be located;

I. In an effort to more fairly assign greater fiscal responsibility to delinquent taxpayers, the City of Burlington wishes to charge $25 per notice for the creation, printing and mailing of said notice, which will be assessed specifically to the delinquent accounts that are causing the need for a tax sale and not to the general tax base;

J. The Clerk may request a deposit of 50% of the estimated cost of production from any requestor where the estimated cost exceeds $15;

K. Where a party seeks copies of documents to be sent by mail, in addition to the fees set forth in above, a five-dollar-per-document service charge shall be collected by the custodian;

L. The fee for certified copies of vital statistic records and other documents and certifications shall be $20 for the first copy and $10 for each additional copy.