Supervisors Squabble Over Township Finances

The balance sheet may say Upper Macungie Township has zero debt on the books, but whether or not the township is suffering from tough financial times was up for debate at Thursday night's Board of Supervisors meeting.

Supervisor Kathy Rader, at the end of Thursday night's meeting, pointed out the financial portion of the township's recently published newsletter that stated its strong financial position as of July 31.

"I've been asked about this," she said. "We have zero debt, because we have a capital reserve investment fund. We funded a new police department and to date, we haven't seen a nickel back into that fund."

Supervisor Sam Ashmar said when he took office in 2007, the township had $13.878 million on hand and now has $13.541 million.

"For us to say we are financially distressed, we are not," Ashmar said.

Ashmar said the township has grown substantially in population (now more than 21,000 residents), has since funded the opening of a police department, opened the Station 56 firehouse, spent $1.8 million for Lone Lane Park and another $1.6 million for Independent Park.

"We're being proactive to stay with the times," Ashmar said.

"But, you raised our taxes," said township resident Jim Brunell, who is the Republican nominee for the open supervisor seat in this November's election. Brunell questioned the finances quoted in the township's newsletter in a Patch article earlier this week.

"It costs you $200 per year for police, fire and recreation," Ashmar shot back. "Please don't use this to grandstand for your campaign. Two hundred dollars per year is a small price to pay and nobody comes to me and tells me we're ripping them off."

"Well, I'm not up for re-election, the millage was doubled, and we don't get the money back [that was laid out] from the capital reserve fund," Rader said. 

Rader pointed out that September's bills totaled $1.502 million, leaving the bill-paying fund with just more than $711,000.

"We need to have a two-month minimum for bills. Year-to-date, we're $201,641 to the good for the whole quarter. It scares the crap out of me," Rader said.

Rader and Ashmar said there are more revenue coming into township for the year's final quarter, including late tax payments, earned income tax payments and some $700,000 in local services taxes.