Budget approved with 8% tax hike

Gale opposes $498M spending plan

NORRISTOWN » The Montgomery County commissioners Thursday adopted a $498.6 million general fund operating budget and capital improvement plan for fiscal year 2022 with an 8 percent property tax increase.

The budget passed in a 2-1 roll call vote with Commissioner Joe Gale, a Republican, as the sole dissenter. Democrats Val Arkoosh and Ken Lawrence Jr. voted yes.

“Since taking office in 2016, I have routinely opposed the county’s annual budget due to an (unsustainable) pattern of runaway spending, spiraling deficits and skyrocketing property taxes, and I will be voting no again this year,” Gale said.

Montgomery County’s Chief Financial Officer Dean Dortone gave a presentation kicking off budget proceedings during a Nov. 18 Montgomery County Board of Commissioners meeting as the county faced a $12 million “structural budget deficit.”

The final budget approved Thursday included an increase in the county’s property tax rate from 3.623 mills to 3.923 mills. Property owners of a single-family home with an average market value of $381,000 would pay an additional $49 per year, Dortone said.

The 2022 fiscal year budget recorded $498.6 million in expenses and $486.6 million in revenues. Dortone noted the budget’s largest expenditures recorded 40.4 percent from health and human services, 17.1 percent from judicial and 14.4 percent from corrections.

The highest sources of revenues came from real estate taxes at 49 percent, federal and state grants at 39 percent and departmental earnings at 12 percent, according to Dortone.

Dortone said in his presentation last month that several steps would be implemented in order to balance the budget, including an

$11.9 million “planned budgetary drawdown” from the general fund’s reserves.

Of that, $5 million would account for future pension costs and $6.9 million would cover future debt service costs, according to Dortone. Additionally, he said last month that another $100,000 would be extracted from the unassigned fund balance “to close the $12 million budget gap in 2022.”

The unassigned fund balance now stands at $97.8 million, which is 20.1 percent of the general fund revenues, according to Dortone.

The Montgomery County Community College rate remained unchanged at .39 mills.

The commissioners held two public hearings on Dec. 2.

Montgomery County’s 2022-26 capital improvement plan was also up for review. The nearly $900 million plan allocated spending for more than 100 projects over the course of five years.

Commissioners authorized the 2022 budgeted expenses, totaling an estimated $245 million. The largest portions of the 2022 section of the CIP came from assets and infrastructure, the county campus plan and the planning commission, according to Dortone, recording $79,059,782, $79,503,547 and $55,962,668, respectively.

“I’ve been especially critical of the half-billion-dollar boondoggle, known as the justice center construction project,” Gale said. “This outlandish expenditure serves little more than giveaways to union bosses, and is frankly a slap in the face to the taxpayers of Montgomery County.”

Commissioners’ Chairwoman Arkoosh commended Dortone for his efforts.

“Mr. Dortone, you have a budget. Congratulations,” Arkoosh said. “Thank you to you and your team for an incredible amount of work these last several months.”

“I’ve been especially critical of the half-billion-dollar boondoggle, known as the justice center construction project. This outlandish expenditure serves little more than giveaways to union bosses, and is frankly a slap in the face to the taxpayers of Montgomery County.”

— Commissioner Joe Gale