2019 budget ready for final vote, 2018 showing surplus

LANSDALE >> Borough council will be ready to approve Lansdale’s 2019 budget in less than two weeks, and the 2018 budget is shaping up to produce good news at the end of the year.

Council’s administration and finance committee formally voted Dec. 5 to recommend council approve the budget, with no increases to taxes or utility rates, on Dec. 19.

“Have we had any input from the public?” asked Councilman Leon Angelichio.

“We have not had anybody even come in and look at it,” borough Manager John Ernst replied.

Ernst began talks on the 2019 budget in September, demonstrating a series of interactive financial dashboards that let residents break down the different funds and trends in the roughly $45.8 million budget.

Highlights include $1.4 million in local road projects, partially offset by state liquid fuel fund

subsidies, along with installation of new solar power systems at the municipal building and electric department complex, the start of construction on a $2.7 million streetscape project along East Main Street and the borough’s planned skate park, both to be partially covered by grants.

A second draft of the budget was discussed by council and its committees in October and a third in November, and Ernst and Finance Director John Ramey said they’ve had minimal public feedback or questions since then.

“It’s sitting upstairs at the desk, and not one person” has asked to see it, Ramey said.

The most recent draft of the proposed 2019 budget is available on the borough’s website Lansdale.org and at the municipal building until council’s Dec. 19 meeting, when council could vote to approve it and the accompanying tax resolution.

Ramey also gave an update on the borough’s 2018 budget, and said temporary fund shortfalls he reported in November due to certain bill payments and expenses processed through the end of September appear to have corrected themselves after another month.

“Revenues in the general fund are up about $669,000 through the end of October, and expenses are up only $625,000. That’s about a nine percent increase in revenues, and only a seven percent increase in expenses,” he said.

If those trends hold, Ramey told council’s administration and finance committee, the borough would end the year with a roughly $150,000 surplus over prior estimates, and Ramey said the increase was largely thanks to higher than expected transfer tax revenues.

“That’s the big one: we’re looking to be $100,000 over budget, if it follows the trend of last year” for the final two months, Ramey said.

Angelichio said the transfer tax revenue increase would help the bottom line for 2018, but would be difficult to predict it happening again, and was a relatively small amount compared to the entire budget.

“It’s something of an anomaly, kind of a one-year event,” he said, calling it “a significant number, but in the grand scheme of things, a very small increase.”

Resident Jean Fritz asked if the higher than anticipated revenues meant the borough would run a surplus for the year instead of a deficit, and Ramey said it would.

“Unless something happens, like the roof blows off” of the borough municipal building, Fritz said.

“We’ve got a bigger problem if the roof blows off of this building,” Ernst answered.