Warminster 2020 Budget Has Tax Increase, Water Sale (ICYMI)

WARMINSTER, PA — Facing tight finances and the looming threat of bankruptcy, supervisors in Warminster are considering a 2020 budget that would raise taxes to stay on solid footing.

The budget, as presented by township staff, also assumes that supervisors will agree to sell the township's water and sewer systems to a private operator, even though they have not already done so.

If the sales ultimately are not approved, taxes would need to be raised even higher, township staffers say.

"There is no doubt that we face many changes over the next couple of years due to our financial situation," Township Manager Gregg Schuster wrote in the budget's introduction. "But I know that working together we can solve this problem."

Read Warminster Township's proposed 2020 budget here.

The budget includes a 3.08-mill property tax increase, which township staff says would amount to about $78 for the average Waminster homeowner.

Tax increases are budgeted in the township's ambulance fund and fire funds, as well as in the parks and recreation fund and debt-service fund.

Schuster wrote that, on its current path, the township will run out of money in 2020.

He said bankrolling Warminster's pension plan and police department — where employees are budgeted a 3.5% pay increase annually — have hit the township's finances the hardest. For the past three years, tax and fee revenues to the township's general fund have been flat, Schuster said, while expenses have increased.

Supervisors are expected to vote on the budget plan at their Dec. 19 meeting. But in an election year that brought big changes, that might not even be the final word.

On Jan. 6, Democrats Ken Hayes and Judy Hoover will join the board, giving their party a majority. Because of the election, Pennsylvania state law would allow the new board to re-open the budget in January.