By Carl Bubeck<\/p>\n
The proposed 43.5% increase in Northampton County property taxes for 2027 deserves a much harder examination of how government spends our money. County Executive Tara Zrinski and County Council should explain which operating changes they evaluated, what those changes could save and why they were rejected.<\/p>\n
The proposal adds $470 annually to taxes paid on $100,000 of assessed property value. Families deserve a costed alternative before being asked to absorb that increase.<\/p>\n
My review of county budgets and public records produced a working scenario of $1.39 million in first-year net improvement, $5.37 million in Year 2 and $7.30 million annually from Year 3. The five-year total is $28.67 million. At maturity, that includes $6.44 million of expense reduction and $867,000 of additional net revenue, after ongoing implementation costs.<\/p>\n
These are conditional targets requiring contract, staffing and claims verification. They would not eliminate the roughly $43.7 million needed to hold the proposed county tax rate steady. Overtime overruns or hiring delays could erase the first-year benefit.<\/p>\n
Officials should validate or rebut each proposal with their own figures.<\/p>\n
Start with Gracedale. Replacing 150,000 agency hours at a fully loaded saving of $20 per hour would yield $3 million annually. That requires a credible recruitment, retention and scheduling plan maintaining qualified coverage. Better billing and collections, modeled at another $5 net per resident-day across 475 residents, would add about $867,000. Verify collectible reimbursement and care delivered.<\/p>\n
Healthcare purchasing offers another $1.07 million annual target: a 5% improvement against $35.68 million of budgeted active-benefit contributions, assuming 60% benefits county taxpayers. Compare equivalent coverage, pharmacy rebates, administrative fees and stop-loss costs. Invite eligible public employers to price joint purchasing. New Jersey\u2019s comptroller reported that Rockaway eliminated duplicate prescription coverage, saving about $755,000 through December 2024.<\/p>\n
Contracts and supplies carry a $1.37 million target, assuming an 8% reduction in a $17.16 million pool. Test outside work against funded staff capacity. The solicitor\u2019s proposed budget is $795,700; HR forecasts $100,000 of outside legal services in 2026. Custodial services has 30 authorized full-time positions plus part-time staffing, and maintenance has 25 full-time positions. Compare purchased tasks with their actual workloads. Where qualified staff can absorb work at lower total cost, stop buying it twice.<\/p>\n
Scrutiny should name contracts. Vision Technologies received $2.58 million in 2025. Compare its base obligations with separately purchased technology work. A $492,500 request for CHA\u2019s parking-garage construction management covers roughly two years; check overlap among county staff, engineers and project managers. These amounts warrant examination; they are not established waste or additional annual savings. Start now with duplicate invoices, unclaimed vendor credits, unused licenses and repairs already covered by warranties.<\/p>\n
The model also tests $225,000 from communications, $319,000 from occupancy costs and $900,000 from 10 genuinely avoidable position equivalents. Identify unused accounts, measure building costs and prove which workloads can be eliminated or combined. Those 10 positions have not been established as redundant. Annual execution costs of $450,000 and first-year setup costs of $500,000 are included in the net figures.<\/p>\n
Extend joint purchasing and shared equipment or specialist maintenance with Easton, Bethlehem and willing townships. Explore PennDOT service exchanges.<\/p>\n
Reconcile the 133 distinct county-named parcel IDs identified in my screening. Confirm occupancy, restrictions and carrying costs, then publish sale, lease or reuse recommendations. This is not a verified vacant-property list. No property proceeds are included in the model.<\/p>\n
Other counties have delivered results. In 2019, Anne Arundel reported over $15 million in procurement savings across three years while shortening purchasing turnaround by more than 22 days. Northampton should test those methods against its own costs.<\/p>\n
Within 30 days, publish contract and staffing baselines. By Day 60, present priced changes; by Day 90, show executable budget reductions and service measures. Report actual savings, care outcomes and maintenance backlogs monthly. Start during budget deliberations.<\/p>\n
Voters should demand leaders capable of delivering this work. Northampton can become an example other counties follow, but its leaders must earn that distinction through lower costs and better service.<\/p>\n
This is a contributed opinion column. Carl Bubeck is a Williams Township resident\u00a0with experience leading operations and technology teams. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author(s), and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. For more details on commentaries, read our guide to guest opinions at mcall.com\/opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Carl Bubeck The proposed 43.5% increase in Northampton County property taxes for 2027 deserves a much harder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,1559],"class_list":["post-309900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309900","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=309900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}