Our staff does an excellent job preparing our draft budgets. But I’m a visual person. So I created a couple pie charts to help demonstrate where township dollars are spent. I think this helpful and I hope residents find them useful.

*General Fund Snapshot: 
3 biggest expenditures:

• Refuse & Recycling
• Roads & Traffic (The township has 130 miles of roads)
• Benefits and Insurance (Includes property insurance and employee benefits)

*1. Sewer items are in a completely separate fund
 2. Road items paid for with liquid fuels are in separate budgets.

*Engineering does not includes services that are paid for by developers associated with land development submittals. 

Capital Fund Snapshot
RECYLING TOTES: I am interested to hear what residents think about the 150,000 investment in new (LARGER) recycling totes. As this is a truly discretionary item. This is something I’ve heard some residents asking for. Would like some more feedback. NOTE: The 150,000 dollar line item would also be matched with grant funding.

Even without the Quarry Project as I’ve been saying all along… the township is still making very significant investment in our Park system.

Land preservation/acquisition is a new item this year. If you read this blog with any frequency you know my thoughts and what I believe to be an urgency here. This is what I clearly ran on and what I think I was elected with a mandate to work towards. We now have a 2 year window where politically we have the wherewithal to explore all our options. We have about a 5 year window to get some land preserved. These line items ensures we have flexibility to act when opportunities present themselves. There s no guarantee any or all this line item is spent. But earmarking it keeps options open.

It’s now or never for this township. Some of the money budgeted this year could get matched with potentially and up to *4-1 return through the Lehigh County Municipal Match Farmland Preservation Program.

*estimate

Tax Revenue Snapshot:
How much revenue does each tax generate for the Twp. Real estate transfer, earned income tax and local service taxes pay for general fund items. The property tax covers 31% of capital expenses. This is proposed 2016. Here was a breakdown of your 2015 Lower Mac property tax bill. 
*Not included on any chart are items in the separate sewer and liquid fuel funds. You can view them here.
Total Sewer Fund expenditures are 3.9 Million.
Total Liquid Fuel Fund Expenditure is 1,507,000
No, liquid fuels does not cover all of road maintenance.

VIEW THE ENTIRE BUDGET LINE BY LINE HERE

Questions? Email me at Ronbeitler@gmail.com