Radnor proposes 9 percent tax increase

might face a similar budget deficit next year and there was no guarantee that business tax revenue would rebound.

Commissioner Richard Booker suggested spending down the fund balance, saying, “You don’t really need it.”

Larkin asked Zienkowski and White to see if there were areas in the township budget to cut so that he could explain why a tax increase is needed to his constituents.

“You get to keep having the township trash collection,” said Larkin. “You get to keep having police instead of asking the state or whatever.”

Booker said, “The whole job of the township is to provide police and to provide trash … That’s what we’re here to do ... We need to do fire; we need to do police; we need to do trash; we need to do sewers. The rest of the stuff is extra. There’s a whole lot of fluff on there. There’s a lot of extra stuff.”

White said a 9 percent real estate tax increase, which would cost the median home owner with an assessed property value of $269,430 an extra $95, would be needed to fund the OPEB “catch-up” payment.

A 6 percent tax increase, which was also discussed, would cost a homeowner at the median $63 more in real estate taxes. A 6 percent tax increase would generate $760,000 more in revenue and a 9 percent would generate $1.1 million, White said.

Commissioner Sean Farhy also suggested charging residents a convenience fee to use their credit cards to pay township bills, which he estimated might bring in

$55,000.

At its Nov. 12 meeting, commissioners approved a new employee structure that saves the township

$70,000.

The board also agreed to discuss capital funding projects in the early part of next year.

Commissioner John Nagle said that he would like to include funding for local organizations at the manager’s suggested level, except for $15,000 more for a social worker for the Wayne Senior Center. And for the Radnor Fire Co, Nagle said he wants to give it an additional $100,000, rather than the $250,000 fire officials requested.

White said those requests are not in the budget yet and would increase the deficit, adding $1.4 million to the $500,000 deficit.

The board is also leaning toward increasing sanitary sewer rents by 10 percent.

Increasing both the real estate taxes and the sewer fee by 10 percent would make “a huge difference to a lot of people,” said Booker.

However, previously, officials discussed much needed repairs to the aging sewer system and the board nixed the idea of selling it to an outsides company. The board had also approved a

10 percent increase in the sewer rent for 2018, which had not yielded as much additional revenue as officials previously thought. Farhy said that newer washing machines, dishwashers and toilets use less water, so that might be a factor.

Sara Pilling, a resident, spoke at the close of the meeting, saying that many senior citizens will be hard pressed to pay for increased real estate taxes and higher sewer bills, as well. Social Security payments have not risen that much, she said. Pilling also said the township could save money in recycling costs if residents would do it properly, including not putting materials in plastic bags and placing only clean items into their recycling bins.

The 2019 budget will be on the agenda at the Nov. 26 BOC meeting and is expected to be adopted on Dec. 10.