Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
This summary covers the Board of Commissioners meeting highlighted by the Township Manager's draft preliminary 2027 operating and capital budget, several land-use approvals, adoption of a stormwater bond ordinance, introduction of data-center zoning regulations, and community grant awards. The agenda lists a 6:30 PM start and identifies the meeting date as Monday, October 26, 2026, while the transcript's call to order is at 7:00 PM and the supplied metadata states 2026-10-27; the summary uses the metadata date. Notice was also given of a prior executive session on legal and real estate issues.
No further new or old business was discussed, and the meeting was adjourned by voice vote.
Hello everyone, thank you for coming to the Board of Commissioners meeting. I'd like to call the meeting to order this Monday, October 26th at 7 p.m. Will you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge of the allegiance. Okay. I'd like to give notice of executive session just prior to this meeting where we discuss legal and real estate issues. We're gonna start off today with a presentation of the township manager's draft preliminary 2027 operating and capital budget. Mr. White? Yes, thank you, Mr. President. Uh Ian, if we can hopefully get this thing up and running. All right. Thank you, Commissioners, for taking some time tonight to hear this presentation. Uh I know we've got some other things on the agenda, so I will uh try to get through this quickly and still hit some of the higher points. Uh table of contents, uh a quick update on the cost to live in Radner is something that we usually talk about, but later in the process, so we moved it up a little bit earlier for tonight. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the accounting organizational structure that are in the presentation. Uh those don't change year over year. So it's the same stuff as last year. And then a quick update on how 2026 is looking to date and where the 27 numbers are lining up. So when we talk about living in Ratner Township and the cost, uh, I know for those of us in this building, and I know commissioners when we hear from residents and constituents about uh the cost to live here. Uh most folks uh confuse the fact that the Radner Township is only one of three different taxing entities that are paying real estate taxes. Uh the township is about 12 cents on every real estate tax dollar, with the school district and the county making up the other two. Uh then when we take a look at how much it costs to live here uh versus some of our neighbors. Uh when you take into consideration uh the assessed values uh the or the millage rates assigned to those assessed values, uh, as well as any kind of trash fees, obviously Radner has a stormwater fee and sanitary sewer rent and other fees. Uh we have a uh a cost calculator that we keep up to date, and again, showing that at a municipal level uh Radner is uh very affordable, especially when you apply that cost against the services that are delivered. Uh and one of the main reasons why we're able to do this and provide all those services is because uh of quite honestly the the Act 511 tax group uh and the revenue that's generated by that group that helps offset the costs uh of uh real estate tax. Uh so accounting structure overview again, I'm not gonna spend a great deal of time on this. Uh for the the most important thing to keep in mind is that the general fund is the the primary fund of the township. It houses all all of our uh departmental uh operations. Uh each of the special revenue funds carry with it their own special purpose. So when you take a look at um the combining operating statement of all of our funds, uh you have the general fund, uh which since it does house all of our operations, the amounts that flow through that fund are obviously gonna be much much bigger. Uh then within each of our special revenue funds, uh, as the name would indicate, um those funds have a very specific legal purpose for which uh they exist. Uh examples include our sanitary sewer fund, our stormwater fund, uh the shade tree fund, uh, as well as like liquid fuels fund where we get the money from the state to help resurface our roads. Um each one of those columns represents a different legal fund. And then we have the enterprise fund, which used to be the Willows Fund. Um, however, the activity in that has um virtually ended as a result of uh our engagement with the Willows Park Preserve and the job that they're doing at that site. Then the bottom line is what the bottom line is. Um this is the number that we're shooting for in our case. Uh we remember that uh revenues are credits, so they're the negative numbers, expenses are debits, so they're the positives. So net expense or a deficit are positive numbers, net revenue or um surplus would be the numbers negative. Not a whole lot to drill into on these and where these numbers are at today. That there's still quite a few discussions and decisions that'll happen over the next month or so. So I think a lot of those numbers are going to change. We're still organized the same way. Staffing numbers for 25 and 26 remain relatively the same. We had a couple new positions added this year as a result of last year's budget process.