{"id":3042,"date":"2025-10-16T02:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/3042\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T02:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:10:12","slug":"upper-darby-approves-a-scaled-down-2025-budget-of-nearly-98-million-delco-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/3042\/","title":{"rendered":"Upper Darby approves a scaled down 2025 budget of nearly $98 million \u2013 Delco Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After multiple public hearings Upper Darby Council has approved a nearly $98 million<\/a> budget for 2025.<\/p>\n

The approval of the budget comes after normal budget plans collapsed at the end of 2024 when a Delaware County judge overturned a proposed budget 1 percent earned income tax<\/a> that officials said was central to the budget.<\/p>\n

The court decision forced officials to reduce the $101 million budget, eliminating the expected EIT income, reducing spending and money to be set aside in a rainy day fund.<\/p>\n

The revised budget still includes money for five additional police officers to be added to the 133-member department.<\/p>\n

The 2024 year budget carried through until the new budget was approved.<\/p>\n

Council will vote next week on a revised EIT, which would take effect later in the year.<\/p>\n

At Thursday\u2019s Council meeting Mayor Ed Brown said the revised budget reflects his vision and supports realistic and adequate funding.<\/p>\n

He said the budget addresses both short- and long-term goals and funds capital investment.<\/p>\n

Brown said when it comes to staff wages and benefits, a balance was struck, and the township is providing long-term fiscal stability.<\/p>\n

Chief Administrative Officer Crandall Jones said the administration has been transparent during the budget process and there is no exorbitant spending.<\/p>\n

Jones said one issue is in the past: The township has not spent enough to take care of the municipal infrastructure and those are areas that the administration is trying to improve.<\/p>\n

He said it would be irresponsible to ignore costs with buildings in poor condition. He said they reduced the capital program to keep from having a tax increase.<\/p>\n

Jones said the judge\u2019s decision on the EIT required making an adjustment and officials were faced with the option of a tax increase or using fund balances and they chose the latter.<\/p>\n

With the new budget the fund balance is $3.7 million. Jones said that if council votes on the EIT and it is enacted for August, that will replenish the fund balance hopefully to $10 million.<\/p>\n

A healthy balance is important to mitigate current and future risks and as seen by financial markets as an indicator of stability, officials said.<\/p>\n

Discussion on salaries<\/p>\n

Council member Laura Wentz asked if $500,000 budgeted for legal costs would be lower with a new solicitor. Jones said that amount is not out of line for the amount of litigation the township is involved in.<\/p>\n

Asked by a resident why upper level manager and department heads who have recently come into the administration are seeing large raises, Jones said a lot of the costs in the township come from inefficiencies in technologies and processes and the township wants the best people who have the skills and experience to address those problems and those jobs are in demand.<\/p>\n

He said with the proper managers that know how to operate their departments you will see the return on those salaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will see the return on that investment will more than pay for the salary,\u201d he said. \u201cThe revenue from that investment the qualified personal who are more forward thinking \u2026 who know exactly how to run an L & I department, the return on that is going to be tremendous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones said you have to have talented leaders to improve things and for that you have to pay for competitive talent.<\/p>\n

Jones said that in 2024, his salary was was the seventh highest salary in the township and no other department head was in the top 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s police and fire, and I don\u2019t begrudge that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you have to understand the cost of contracts, which is negotiated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones said a driver of the budget are employee contracts which have to be negotiated out over time to change.<\/p>\n

Jones said while the negotiations with the Transport Workers Union Local 234 is complete, the police union wants to go to arbitration and officials are looking at that taking place in June. The fire department agreement ends at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n

Wentz said in a community where many people don\u2019t have those levels of income, it is a burden to residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After multiple public hearings Upper Darby Council has approved a nearly $98 million budget for 2025. The approval…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[212,182,139,28,210,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-3042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-delaware-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-dtd","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}