Independence Township looks to be in good shape for 2017, according to a recent budget review.
“It looks like our revenue for 2017 is projected to be right around $6 million, our operating expenses are going to be $5.9 million, which would leave us with about $100,000 surplus,” Supervisor Pat Kittle said at the July 12 budget meeting.
According to Township Budget Analyst Rick Yeager, revenues for 2017 are up about $72,000, and expenditures are decreasing approximately $330,000.
“Some of this has to do with ADA requirements for the parks, getting some of the parks facilities up to snuff,” Kittle said. “Doing some general maintenance around the township long overdue, that would give us almost $200,000 negative impact to our fund balance. This would be a planned expenditure to get us to where we need to get to.”
Budget increases include $10,000 more in legal expenses.
“That is going to be directly attributable to the number of tickets and ordinance violations we’re chasing,” he said.
“Ordinance prosecutions have been increasing over the past few years,” Yaeger added. “We typically budget $60,000 but decided to take it up to $70,000 based on past activity.”
Another increase is about $20,000 in the supervisor’s department.
“That has to do a lot with me and my $4,000 raise that was approved by the board and $13,000 in benefits I had been forgoing the past four years that I will be taking in the second term if elected,” Kittle said. “That would have to include things like a healthcare buyout, life insurance, retirement matches and some disability payments, just in case I do go down.”
A third increase is $75,000 in the assessing department.
“It all has to do with a head replacement,” Kittle added. “One of our members will be retiring in two years and has put the assessor on notice and we have to make the decision of do we recruit now and train and grow our own and give them ample time to become proficient in the assessing skills or do we wait?”
A fourth impact will be separating the building department from planning and zoning. Planning and zoning and code enforcement would be its own department, which will increase costs by about $55,000.
Finance Director Wendy Hillman said it makes it easier when it comes to budgeting.
“We’re required by the state construction code act to enter financial statements to footnote the revenue generated from the building department and how it covers the expenses of the building department,” Hillman explained. “Because other things are commingled in there our footnote has really been skewed over the past how ever many years. And the state requires us to do that as a way of making sure our fees are reasonable and proper because they don’t want us to have a big surplus and charge too much to our residents. At the same time we also can monitor that the revenues are supporting the expenses of the building department, so it would make our footnote more accurate to have them separate.”
“It really is just like a regular old department, like supervisor or clerk, or treasurer, it’s just like the planning and zoning department,” Yeager added. “There are really no say revenues that support that department by itself.”
Trustee David Lohmeier said he didn’t mind breaking things apart from an accounting standpoint, but was curious as to where the increase came in to play.
Kittle said it was a couple of things, which included administrative pay for the building director, annualizing pay for a new assistant director over 12 months, as well as two percent increase to office staff.
“When we lost our mechanical and plumbing inspector, who just wanted an ungodly amount of money, we brought in SAFEbuilt and after a couple of tries landed on a guy that’s working out extremely well. He comes in Monday, Wednesday, Friday and only bills us for the hours he needs,” he explained. “The net cost is about $20,000 more than what we were paying our old inspector. I think we’re getting better service, plus we still have the benefit of leveraging SAFEbuilt when it comes to commercial building inspectors and site plan reviews for the stuff we just don’t do on a daily basis. Those account for about roughly $50,000 of it.”
Kittle noted that they are also planning on hiring Brian Oppman from Township Planner Carlisle, Wortman Associates as a part-time township employee to be the new ordinance officer.
“We’re getting almost 300 ordinance violations a year now, which equates to a complaint and half a day,” he said. “It’s just chewing up a tremendous amount of time to be able to address those adequately and then respond to the guy who made the complaint as well. There is just a lot of documentation.”
Kittle said Oppman would still be doing a lot of the plan review he does now as well.
Assumptions used to prepare the budget included:
· 2% wage increases in 2017, 2018 and 2019 for all employees;
· Several New Employees (1 in Assessing and 1 in Building);
· Hospitalization is based on the new CAP levels (up 2.5% from the old levels) plus Dental and Vision. A 10% annual increase has been projected for Dental and Vision;
· Life insurance Short and Long Term Disability are expected to increase 5% for each year budgeted;
· Based on latest AFSCME contract we now provide Long Term Disability to all union and non-union employees;
· Add $’s for various Road Projects (Oakhill and Foster);
· Add $’s to continue the fight against Phragmites;
· Continue Gravel Projects throughout the township; and
· Continue to fund the Township Newsletter.
“Kudos to Rick and working with the team,” Kittle said. “A lot of stuff is going on.”
“This was really, really good, Lohmeier added.