Group Unites to Oppose Middletown Tax Hike

A group has formed and plans to rally outside Middletown Township’s public information session on the proposed 2014 budget, which includes a tax increase.

Middletown Township Taxpayers United came to light last week after a public outcry over the proposed 1 percent earned income tax. Organizers plan to rally at 6 p.m. Wednesday night outside the township building on Municipal Way, where the budget meeting will be held.

Former Neshaminy School Board member William O’Connor is involved with the group and said the “rally is to demonstrate our disapproval for how Middletown Township supervisors have been mismanaging our township budget for a few years now.”

The revelation of a proposed tax increase caught many township residents off guard. Officials said last year that a tax increase might be needed in the 2014 due to declining revenues, according to a Levittown Patch report. (The story is no longer listed of the local Patch site.)

Read More About the Proposed Budget and Tax Increase

Township Manager Stephanie Teoli-Kuhls said at the last Board of Supervisors meeting that there has been structural imbalance in the General Fund since 2006. Reasons for the loss of funds in 2013 include an increase in police pension. healthcare costs and loss of the anticipated $1,300,000 budgeted transfer from the Investment Fund to the General Fund due to poor performance of the Investment Fund, she added.

If the proposed earned income tax is initiated for all resident and non-resident workers of Middletown, the community could add $2,606,546 to its income. A million dollar emergency transfer from the Investment Fund to the General Fund and reduction of Real Estate Millage by 2-mils, which equals about $58 a homeowner, was also proposed at the meeting.

O’Connor pointed to several examples of “undisciplined spending” by Middletown officials. He said hiring of a full-time township engineer in addition to an external firm and an additional administrator along with what he says was a “no-bid contract to an insurance broker well-known to be a partisan campaign contributor” with a spotty record are some of the problems the group has.

“Instead of making tough decisions, our supervisors cut some miscellaneous expenses and took money from reserves to balance the budget.  That worked for a few years but now they cannot outrun their operational deficit, and now they want to target wage earners with a 1% earned income tax,” O’Connor said.

Township Supervisor Tom Gallagher suggested the tax be out on a referendum to allow residents to vote on it.

Several Middletown residents reached out to LevittownNow.com last week to voice their displeasure that the first budget meeting was scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.last Thursday. The meeting took place  and officials scheduled a  second meeting for this week.

“[The first meeting] took place at a time inconvenient to the working residents who will have to pay this tax and they did not allow public comment during that meeting.  That was the major factor that made this rally necessary, O’Connor said. “We have since heard that, following the public pressure they have been receiving, the supervisors have graciously decided to let the public speak during the second half of Wednesday evening’s meeting,”

“Residents will be able to move throughout the room, interacting with elected officials, staff and consultants at various stations,” Township Manager Stephanie Teoli Kuhls said recently about the format of the meeting.

Supporters of Middletown Township Taxpayers United passed flyers out to residents in advance of the rally.