When the Lower Nazareth Township Mgr. introduced the 2008 budget at the November 14th, 2007 Board of Supervisor meeting, he mentioned a shortfall of revenue to expense of $901,290 which could be covered by the General Fund unless there were “revenue enhancements.” Instead the Supervisors (with the exception of Mr. Eric Nagle) recommended a “revenue enhancement” of a one mill tax increase to minimize the transfer from General Funds. (See earlier post: Is A Tax Increase In Your Future) The 2008 Budget was advertised in the Express Times.
At last nights meeting, the Board approved without comment or question the proposed budget.
With shortfalls of $584K and $656K in earlier years, I got to thinking, how is a township of comparable size and make up fairing? As it turns out, Upper Nazareth Township (pop. ~4400) makes their budget available online (http://www.uppernazarethtownship.org/) so it was easy to look for similarities. Lower Nazareth (pop. ~5200) does not publish the budget on their web site, you are required to go to the township office to view; although I have made it available here: http://lowernazareth.org/html/other_documents.
The two townships do not categorize expenses in exactly the same manner, so I attempted to collate like data for a comparison. View file UNT vs. LNT Budgets for a summary comparison. They (UNT) appear to be doing something right.
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