By Rohan Anne, Webmaster
On Dec. 18, the Tredyffrin Township board of supervisors approved the township’s 2024 budget 5-1. The budget includes two newly created funds for both stormwater and emergency services within the township. The total cost for the budget this year is $61.9 million.
Within the total cost, the board of supervisors allocated around $22 million to police and fire services. The township also prioritized the sanitation and stormwater departments this year with the apportionment of around $10.5 million in total to sewer and stormwater management.
To aid in collecting this money, the board of supervisors is implementing raised taxes for both stormwater and emergency services funds. According to David Miller, chair of the township board of supervisors, project grants from the township will fund parts of the budget, such as stormwater management.
“The actual stormwater projects are funded through a combination of taxes and then grants,” Miller said. “For example, we have a $2 million grant we’re going to announce as it is a big project in the township.”
The township gave $4.1 million to street management and $3.6 million to parks, recreation and recycling.
The board of supervisors also allocated a total of $2.6 million toward stormwater management, which the supervisors believed was necessary given flooding in past years. According to Miller, the township supervisors were unable to implement a fee for stormwater management due to a pending lawsuit.
“We were going to charge a (stormwater management) fee, but we couldn’t do that at the end of the day because there’s a case in progress right now. West Chester University, which is part of the Penn State system, sued West Chester Borough in order to not pay their stormwater fee, arguing that the fee is a tax and that they don’t have to pay it as a tax exempt entity,” Miller said. “That case is going through the system right now, and we decided we were not going to charge a stormwater fee and have someone sue us later.”
The board of supervisors allocated $2.6 million to help both volunteer-based fire companies and emergency services. The fund aims to add a fire administrator, a management position for both fire and emergency medical services (EMS), to fire companies based in Tredyffrin in the second half of 2024. It also intends to increase income and funding given to fire companies.
Michael Baskin, the Berwyn Fire Company’s EMS captain, said that getting funding for fire companies in Tredyffrin Township has been a multi-year effort that required a lot of collaboration.
“Because Berwyn Fire Company was based in both the Tredyffrin and Easttown townships, this became a really collaborative process between Tredyffrin and Easttown, and it’s difficult to get these two townships with different sizes and populations to work together,” Baskin said. “The process of getting taxes dedicated toward fire and EMS was a really big accomplishment that took us a couple of years, and I think everybody’s pleased about where we wound up.”
Rohan Anne can be reached at [email protected].
