There will be no tax increases in the proposed 2014 budgets for Corydon and Lafayette townships.
The townships will keep taxes the same even though the budgets are tight, according to their supervisors.
Corydon Township Supervisor chairman Tim Yohe said Monday afternoon the municipality has not seen a tax increase in the 12 years he has been on the board and it has probably been longer than that since there was any hike in the millage rate.
“Even if we doubled taxes it doesn’t amount to a whole lot,” Yohe said, alluding to the low population of the township.
Yohe said the municipality is in good shape despite a drop in revenue.
“Revenue numbers are down, of course, but everything should be okay,” Yohe said. “It’s mainly because of our forestry receipts — our revenues are tied to logging on the Allegheny National Forest and that’s down probably 60 percent over the 10-year average.”
Yohe said logging revenues account for a “good chunk of the budget,” but the township has acclimated to the fluctuation.
“We know when we have up years it’s going to drop later and we set aside money and plan for that,” Yohe explained. “We anticipate revenues to rebound in coming years, but even if they didn’t we’d probably be good for five to six years before we had to adjust anything.”
Additionally, Yohe said the township is “kind of an anomaly” due to its low property taxes — one of the lowest in the county. The township does not have public sewer and all residents have private wells for water so there are no sewer or water rates either.
Yohe noted that one of the bigger increases to the township’s expenditures relates to the rise in workman’s compensation insurance, with firefighters to be “covered for cancer into the future,” which has “scared off a lot of the carriers and caused the costs to go up considerably” — something he says everyone is facing.
All in all, Yohe said the budget process is coming along well and they plan to finalize it at the next township meeting on Dec. 16. It has already been up for public review for 20 days.
In Lafayette Township, Supervisor chairman John Ryan said the municipality will keep its low tax rate despite a “very tight” budget.
“We’re okay, so there will be no tax increase, and may I say we have a very low tax rate for our residents,” Ryan said. “It’s tight, very tight, and it’s particularly tight in the 2013 budget, so you start to wait for that income to come in for 2014.”
Ryan said much of the property in the township does not produce taxes for the municipality so tax revenue isn’t very much anyway.
“The bulk of our property in the township is the Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania state game lands, government property; the airport is non-taxable and FCI-McKean is also non-taxable as a federal institution,” Ryan said. “So, a large portion of our property does not pay taxes. I will say the state Game Commission gives a stipend in lieu of taxes, but certainly not what you would get from private property owners.
“We try to deal with what we have coming in and what we have going out,” Ryan said.
Ryan also pointed out the municipality will not raise sewer or water rates, to his knowledge.
“We have sewer rates and water is not all over the township — just specific areas,” he explained. “We have it through the Bradford (City) Water Authority and sewer is through the Lafayette Township Sewer Authority.
“Honest to God, we have an excellent working authority,” Ryan added. “No changes are happening to my knowledge. We have not been notified of any increase by the sewer authority.”
According to Ryan, all three of the supervisors are “comfortable with the budget or else (they) wouldn’t have put it out for review.”
The budget is set to be finalized at the township’s next public meeting held on Dec. 17, he said.
