Northampton County passes budget with no property tax increase

For the second year in a row, Northampton County has approved a budget that does not raise property tax rates for homeowners.

The $445 million budget passed by Northampton County Council Thursday night includes an average county tax rate of 1.9%.

The 2020 spending plan also includes measures to fight warehouse proliferation, including $3 million to protect green space and slow warehouse growth along with dedicated funding to preserve farms, create parks and protect environmentally sensitive land.

“This commitment is in line with the desires of the residents of the county as we look to limit new development over these important, and often irreplaceable, landscapes,” County Executive Lamont McClure said.

As council members prepared to vote on the budget, councilman John Cusick took issue with a proposed 9% salary increase for the nursing home administrator position at the county-operated Gracedale nursing home.

“I can’t support this when the folks who really do the tough work at Gracedale are getting one-third the size of a raise next year,” Cusick said.

The $111,000 annual salary is on par or lower with administrative salaries at other Lehigh Valley senior living centers, McClure noted. The administrator at Cedarbrook in Lehigh County makes $121,000, while the same position at Moravian Hall Square pays $147,000.

“Clearly, even at $111,000, our administrator would in fact be underpaid,” McClure said.

Councilman William McGee praised Jennifer Stewart-King, who has served as Gracedale administrator for more than a year.

“She came up through the ranks of the nursing home, and the pay isn’t quite equal to what it would be if we hired someone from outside [the organization],” McGee said.

Councilwoman Tara Zrinski noted that the increase was voted and approved by nursing home staff.

Council voted 6-3 to approve the salary increase.

In other business: Representatives from ES&S, the company that designed the troublesome voting machines used in the November election, recently visited the county to begin adjusting the machines. Company representatives are expected to appear before council on Thursday to discuss their findings, McClure said.

Lee Snover and Matthew Munsey, the respective chairs of the Northampton County Republican and Democratic committees, announced that University of South Carolina Computer Science and Engineering Professor Duncan Buell plans to conduct an independent study of the election in Northampton County. The study will come at no cost to the county, Munsey said.

Peter Blanchard is a freelance writer for The Morning Call.