2010 News

December 15, 2010

Bucks County Commissioners Approve No-Tax Increase Budget for 5th Consecutive Year
By 2-1 Margin, $463.46 Million Working Document Is Enacted

During a two-and-a-half hour meeting that was the final Board of Bucks County Commissioners public business session of 2010, Commissioner Chairman Charles H. Martin and Commissioner James F. Cawley, Esq. voted to approve a $463.46 million county operating budget for 2011. For the fifth consecutive year, the residents of Bucks County will pay a level property tax rate of 21.942 mills. As a result, the county has not raised property taxes since the 2006 budget.

“Once again, the budget passes 2-1, and there will be no tax increase for the residents of Bucks County,” Chairman Martin stated after calling the question inside the 120-seat auditorium at the Bensalem Township-based Bucks County Visitors Center.

Voting against approval of the budget, which includes an $8.072 million draw down from the county general (or “rainy day”) fund, Commissioner Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia, LCSW, qualified her objection by commenting, “I cannot vote for a budget that goes into the rainy day fund when it doesn’t need to.”

Since the preliminary budget was released to the public on November 24, Director of Finance and Administration David Boscola worked with Chief Operating Officer Brian Hessenthaler and county division leaders to pare the gap between revenues and expenditures to the $8.072 million figure. “We asked all departments to keep their budgets at 2010 levels,” Mr. Boscola noted. He added that the budget gap was narrowed by reduced energy costs, juvenile probation placement and increased tax assessments, to name a handful of items.

Mr. Hessenthaler thanked the Finance Department for its diligence throughout the four-month budget process, adding, “This is the fifth consecutive year with no tax increase. Great job. I’m not sure everybody knows – or fully appreciates – what goes into putting a budget together, especially something the size of Bucks County. It’s a lot of work, a lot of behind-the-scenes work. I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank the county division leaders, department heads, row officers and courts. It truly was a team effort. I say this every year, and I mean it every year.”

Mr. Hessenthaler noted that the budget for supplies and services actually came down as compared to the 2010 budget. He cited factors “really out of the county’s control” such as personnel-related costs as a big contributing factor to the shortfall. Again this year, Human Services comprises the largest portion of the budget, 46 percent or $211.7 million, an increase of 2.9 percent. Courts expenditures will comprise $64.4 million, an increase of 4.6 percent. The Department of Corrections Budget is $37.1 million, an increase of 7.6 percent. For a full summary of the county’s operating funds, please visit the home page of www.BucksCounty.org. A detailed budget will be uploaded to the website later this month.

During the budget discussion, which is available via audio on www.BucksCounty.org, Commissioner Marseglia asked her colleagues to consider eight suggestions to reduce the budget gap. The largest of those involved creation of a county drug court. Chairman Martin urged Commissioner Marseglia to continue those discussions with President Judge Susan Scott, noting that the 2011 budget is a framework for ongoing cost reductions.

Commissioner Cawley, who will be sworn in as lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania on Jan. 18, 2011, credited the county administration for building the general fund to the level where five years of level taxation has been possible. The projected ending fund balance for 2011 is $55.4 million – well above the 10 percent threshold the Finance Department has established.

“I am proud to adopt a no-tax increase budget for the fifth straight year,” Chairman Martin noted.