{"id":3293,"date":"2014-12-05T10:06:48","date_gmt":"2014-12-05T15:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=3293"},"modified":"2014-12-05T10:06:48","modified_gmt":"2014-12-05T15:06:48","slug":"downingtown-council-passes-7-66m-budget-for-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/?p=3293","title":{"rendered":"Downingtown council passes $7.66M budget for 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><em><strong>Budget increases by $165k, but borough announces no tax increase<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;\"><strong>By Kyle Carrozza<\/strong>,\u00a0<em><span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\">Staff Writer, The Times<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/DowningtownBorough.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-3297 size-medium\" style=\"border: 2px solid #000000; margin: 4px;\" src=\"http:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/DowningtownBorough-300x290.jpg\" alt=\"DowningtownBorough\" width=\"300\" height=\"290\" srcset=\"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/DowningtownBorough-300x290.jpg 300w, https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/DowningtownBorough.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>DOWNINGTOWN \u2013 Borough Council passed a $7,664,654 budget for 2015 at Wednesday night\u2019s meeting. The budget will not raise taxes from the current 7.65 mills rate and includes a projected $665,925 surplus.<\/p>\n<p>The surplus is down from 2014\u2019s $679,043 projection and the $815,756 actual surplus. The difference can largely be accredited to expenditures in the police budget, which were down in 2014 because of members of the department being on leave for various reasons as well as a $40,000 difference in wages in the streets department.<\/p>\n<p>Residents also voiced multiple concerns regarding Bishop Shanahan at Wednesday night\u2019s meeting.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Resident Maragaret Reif said that she wants the borough to pressure the St. John Vianney Center to change policies regarding patients\u2019 ability to leave the facility without supervision. In particular, she was worried about the Center\u2019s proximity to Bishop Shanahan, especially with some patients receiving treatment for child abuse offenses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of safety,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Reif said that patients sometimes walk over to Shanahan\u2019s campus and watch sports practices, and one patient was even found in the school without having reason to be there.<\/p>\n<p>Resident Eric Getz echoed her concern, saying that he would like to see a wrought-iron fence around the facility and protocol to notify police when child offenders are brought to the premises.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey [St. John Vianney] should not be testing these people\u2019s ability to cope,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Resident George Caripides spoke, voicing discontent over Shanahan\u2019s handling of baseball games and practices. Caripides lives adjacent to the school\u2019s baseball fields. He said that his car and house has been damaged by balls that have gone over the backstop. He also said that people urinate near the fence, and he has drainage concerns. He said that Shanahan has shown a \u201ctotal disconcern and irresponsibility\u201d toward neighbors.<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Josh Maxwell suggested that the borough improve communication with the school so that neighbors\u2019 concerns can be better addressed. Council discussed the possibility of adding stipulations next time Shanahan files for conditional use or special exception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Budget increases by $165k, but borough announces no tax increase By Kyle Carrozza,\u00a0Staff Writer, The Times DOWNINGTOWN \u2013 Borough Council passed a $7,664,654 budget for 2015 at Wednesday night\u2019s meeting. The budget will not raise taxes from the current 7.65 mills rate and includes a projected $665,925 surplus. The surplus is down from 2014\u2019s $679,043 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8],"tags":[52,1390,51],"class_list":["post-3293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-borough-council","tag-budget","tag-downingtown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3293"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3299,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3293\/revisions\/3299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/downingtowntimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}