Homeowner Grants Cut; No Public Comment on Budget

If attendance at Monday’s township budget hearing is any indication, Bensalem residents aren’t very concerned about losing $200.

There were a little more than a handful of residents at the meeting. After the mayor’s speech and presentations from the department heads, nobody from the public yelled or screamed or even asked a question.

In the end, Council unanimously adopted Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo’s proposed budget, which did not raise municipal taxes, but did reduce the township’s Homeowners Assistance Grant program from $300 per homeowner to $100. This affects about 15,000 Bensalem homeowners.

The township began the homeowner grant program when opened. The gaming house annually provides about $11 million in taxes to the township and the grants were a way to give some back to the community.

“I am doing this as a measure to keep taxes from raising,” DiGirolamo said in his budget address.

“This is the tightest and leanest budget that I have presented since becoming mayor,” he added, noting that fixed expenses have increased and there were some unexpected ones such as the cleanup efforts from multiple catastrophic weather events that totaled over $1 million.

“In the general fund operating expenses, there is no difference in the 2012 budget from the 2011 budget,” DiGirolamo said.

In the past year, the mayor said the department heads have reduced spending and eliminated positions – 15 full time and 10 seasonal employees. He mentioned a hiring freeze for 2012.

Despite some telling him it’s a bad idea, the mayor said the township would be utilizing money from its trust fund because he believes the “trust fund belongs to the people of Bensalem.”

“Given the choice of using the trust or raising taxes, I think the answer is clear,” he said. “I do not believe we have reached the point where raising taxes is our most fiscally responsible answer to the budget.”

The mayor's proposed budget is attached to this article as a PDF document.