Financial Condition Assessment and Fiscal Trend Analysis

The ten person joint board for the consolidation process received a report outlying the financial condition of both Sandy Township and the City of DuBois. 

The Eckert Seamans and Pennsylvania Economy League report followed a template designed for aiding municipalities and was converted to work for this consolidation process.  The analysis looks at the five previous fiscal years and uses that to give a forecast for the next five.  This report was partly paid for by the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development.  It will serve to help Sandy and DuBois receive future funding throughout the consolidation process.

The report made its best effort to make the two municipalities comparable.  One example given was the difference how the two communities handle water and sewer.  The City of DuBois runs its water and sewer program directly and through the general fund.  Sandy Township has a Municipal Authority that’s a separate legal entity with separate bank accounts whose board and decision makers are the five elected Sandy Township Supervisors.  In the City all the City Manager’s salary comes from the City’s general fund and budget.  This required the report to try to split the water and sewer side of the City off from the general fund to make it easier to compare to the Township’s system. 

On the other side, Sandy Township splits where it pays employees’ salaries who do work for the township and authority between the two.  The report includes sections where they move employee pay from the authority to the township to make comparing employee costs more comparable. 

The summarized report is that both DuBois and Sandy Township are typical for the types of communities they are.  Within the next few years both will begin running budget deficits.  Not unmanageable deficits but it would require changes.  Expenses are expected to increase while revenue is expected to remain largely flat.  Growth in real estate revenue is limited due to state laws on reassessing properties.  Where home values have increased 45% while assessed value of the region’s properties has only gone up 8.5%. 

The three main expenses for both municipalities are:

• General Government
• Police
• Public Works

Here is a link to an earlier version of this report made available on the consolidation website.

Subcommittees Pause

The Joint Board voted to cancel the next two sets of meetings for most of the subcommittees.  This is to allow the Admin and Finance committees, the two excluded, to go through proposals that have been building up and make recommendations to the Joint Board for final votes.