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12 October 2022 BOS Meeting Summary
Manager’s 2023 Budget Presentation, Newtown-Wrightstown Police Services Agreement, More…
This is my personal summary of the October 12, 2022, meeting of Newtown Township Board of Supervisors (BOS). This is not a complete nor an official summary.
Access the 2022 BOS Chronicle for a more detailed summary of this meeting plus an updated BOS voting record (UNOFFICIAL) for 2022.
Agenda Items
- 2023 Budget Presentation and authorization to advertise
- Reports of Officials
- Engineer: October 7, 2022, Engineer’s Report
- Manager's Report: Consideration to approve contract extension with Wrightstown Township for Police Services; September 2022 Police Report
- Public Comments
- My Meeting Notes
- Official Video
2023 Budget Presentation
2023 Budget Highlights:
- Addition of one (1) full-time Police Officer
- Capital purchases for all departments
- Allocation for payroll outsourcing services
- Salary “adjustments” for key administrative personnel
- Tax increases are proposed in the Fire Protection, Debt Service, and Rescue Squad Fund (contingent upon ballot referendum; read “How Are Newtown Residents Likely to Vote on Emergency Services Tax Referendum?”).
The supervisors voted unanimously to authorize the publishing of the 2023 Preliminary Budget. Download the budget plus the Manager’s Letter/Introduction (PDF).
Highlights of the budget were reviewed at the October 17, 2022, Meet Mack Zoom meeting. View the 17-minute presentation:
Manager's Report
- Newtown-Wrightstown Police Services Agreement
Recently, the Wrightstown Board of Supervisors approved a 10-year contract extension for police protection with Newtown Township (read “Wrightstown Votes to Continue Receiving Police Coverage from #NewtownPA Township”). Under terms of the deal, there is an automatic annual 5% increase in what Wrightstown will pay for police protection, which is the as it was for the past 20 years.
According to the 2022 Newtown Budget, the yearly fee that Newtown charges Wrightstown for this service is $846,529. Meanwhile, Newtown pays $6,074,422 per year for "Police Services" (not including pension payments). From 2017 through 2020, an average of 19% of NTPD Calls For Service were in Wrightstown (see table below).
In a public comment before the vote was taken, Frank McCarron, a resident of Delancey Court, described this as a “sweet deal” for Wrightstown and a bad deal for Newtown. He focused on the cost per police call, which is much higher for Newtown than for Wrightstown and suggested that the BOS table this decision until it had an opportunity to review more data, include patrol miles logged by the Newtown Police Department in Newtown versus Wrightstown.
The motion to OK this extension of the contract failed to pass by a 2-2 vote. I and supervisor Elen Snyder voted “No.” This item will be reconsidered at a future Board meeting before the current contract expires in November.
- September 2022 Police Report (PDF), which includes call data/incidents for both Newtown and Wrightstown. Compare that with the September 2022 Wrightstown Police Report (PDF).
The YTD 2022 calls/incidents for NT and WT combined is 15,110 whereas the YTD 2022 calls/incidents for WT is 2,910 or 19.3% of the total.
My Meeting Notes
Read the notes I prepared for this meeting embedded below or download the PDF file.
Official Video
View the official video of the meeting on Youtube for more details.
the video related to text in the transcript.
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