Spring City Passes Budget with Tax Increase

Spring City's Borough Council passed its 2013 budget at Monday night's meeting, and the budget will include an 8.9 percent tax increase for borough residents. 

The new rate is 4.37 mills, an increase of .36 mills. This means residents will pay $4.37 for every $1000 of their assessed property value, so a hypothetical property valued at $100,000 will pay $437 in taxes. 

"It will be an increase of between $30 and $36 [per year] for most residents," said borough manager Dennis Rittenhouse. 

The real estate transfer tax, the occupation privilege tax and the earned income tax rates will stay at 1 percent. Occupational assessments will be 25 mills.

Library project stalls 

The new Spring City Library project hit another snag at Monday's meeting due to some confusion over a planning commission recommendation. 

The library was on the agenda for approval of its preliminary and final development plan. However, an issue with the minutes of the planning commission meeting resulted in the approval being put on hold. 

Terry McCarthy, the library's board president, told council that the library believed it had provided everything that council needed. The planning commission discussed several waivers but unclear language in the planning commission's minutes caused some consternation. 

Due to the issues with the minutes, the commission's apparent recommendation to approve the plan was tabled until the minutes could be amended to accurately reflect the discussion. 

Engineer Tom Smith of Bercek and Smith asked if this meant the project owuld be delayed another month while the library goes back to the planning commission. 

"It's not that you have to go back," said solicitor Robert Romain. "It's that they have to make a recommendation." 

Council president Louis DiGuiseppe said that at the commission meeting, "it was my understanding that we were recommending approval dependent on the borough engineer's review."

Council decided to request that the borough engineer review the plan instead of sending the plan to the Chester County Conservation District, and have his report sent to council for the January 7th, 2013 meeting.