About Me

My photo
Nazareth, Pa., United States

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Bath to Leave Colonial Regional Police Six Months Sooner Than Expected

At their April 10 meeting, Hanover Township Supervisors unanimously approved an agreement that will allow Bath Borough to leave the Colonial Regional Police Department six months sooner than was expected. Under its contract, Bath was required to continue using the services of Colonial Regional until January 1, 2019. But at Bath's request, its separation from the regional police department will be accelerated to July 1, 2018. Bath will still be required to pay Colonial Regional $242,714.88. It will also pay $92.26 per hour for contract services.

Colonial Regional will continue to provide police coverage for Hanover and Lower Nazareth Townships. The cost for police coverage will be based in an apportionment formula based assessed property valuation (30%), municipal population (30%) and the number of incidents (40%).

"This has been a long haul," said Chair John Diacogiannis.

In more pleasant news, outside auditor Todd Bushta has given the Township a clean bill of financial health again, a clean and unqualified opinion. "The Township is doing a fine job with the financial staff it has," said Bushta.

Highlights from the report reveal that the Township is debt free. There is also no deficit spending. It spends less than it takes in, and was sitting on over $5 million in unrestricted cash and investments at the end of last year. Manager Jay Finnigan has previously credited the 0.5 mill fire tax for enabling him to plan ahead.

The audit is now available on the Township website. In an effort to be more transparent, back-up documents to agenda items are also on the website.

As winter has ended, Public Works Director Vince Milite and his crew have started street sweeping. They plan to hit each street twice.

Supervisors will meet again on April 24, 7 pm, at the municipal building located at 3630 Jacksonville Road.

13 comments:

LVcitizen295 said...

Yes, yes, I know we are a Commonwealth but when are the people of this state going to abandon their ridiculous parochial desire their own little police departments. Regionalization is the way to go. How much money is wasted on part time cops getting no benefits and crappy wages while each little Mayberry has a full time Chief who is a chief in title only. So sad,

Anonymous said...

@6:28,
What's your point? Bath is abandoning a regional PD for State Police coverage. Maybe more municipalities need to join Colonial Regional. I'm fairly sure you are the one who constantly proposes that a county wide PD is essential to the existence of mankind.

Anonymous said...

Bath's future: no speed enforcement, no parking enforcement, limited patrol time, reactive and not proactive policing.

Anonymous said...

@8:30,
Yup....potentially more lawless than the West Ward.

Sheriff Andy said...

Regionalization is NOT the way to go. The Sheriff's office in PA should be like the vast majority of America. The county police. Nothing is more antiquated than our current Sheriff's deputies model. Especially now that they receive the same training for Act 2 as municipal police do with Act 120.

Anonymous said...

Hanover seems to be in healthy financial shape. They just need to be careful with this Bushta guy who lost his CPA license and was disbarred last year for being unethical:

https://www.aicpa.org/forthepublic/disciplinaryactions/2017/bushtatodd.html

https://www.picpa.org/keep-informed/professional-ethics/disciplinary-actions

Bernie O'Hare said...

Bushta represents numerous municipalities. BT stopped using him last year, and he refused to cooperate with the new auditor. I notice he was sanctioned for failing to cooperate with some private organization for CPAs. But his license as a CPA appears to be intact. It is license number CA041412L and was just renewed. Before making claims that an accountant was "disbarred" or lost his CPA license, you should do more research. If I made a statement like your comment, I could be sued for defamation.

You can search licenses here. https://www.pals.pa.gov/#/page/search

Anonymous said...

You are right, I misinterpreted. Please delete my comments as they were in error.

Bernie O'Hare said...

I’ll leave it there bc you are unsigned and others might think this too

Anonymous said...

As far as County Sheriff's taking the load...Sheriff's cannot be police in Pennsylvania because of the way the law is. They cannot investigate crimes like the police can and actually have no statutory powers of arrest. Recently Morganelli has directed the Sheriff's department to have the police departments file criminal charges for them in cases where they used to do so in the past. I don't know why the change. Constables actually have more power to police then Sheriff's do.

Anonymous said...

Had CRPD not been an internally corrupt, non transparent good old boy's club that took care of a few and screwed everyone else maybe other municipalities would jump in. Until they stop letting people show up for work drunk without punishment, skew promotions tests, appoint their buddies to special positions and practice "cause we say so" no one will trust them. Time for some people to retire in CRPD.

Anonymous said...

FT = Fire Trachta
FT = Fire Trachta
FT = Fire Trachta
FT = Fire Trachta
FT = Fire Trachta

Anonymous said...

Bath will quickly realize as others who have PSP that they ONLY respond to emergencies. Routine patrol time and enforcement won't happen. CRPD covers three municipalities and most shifts has 5 officers on duty. During the day they also have detectives and brass available to respond to calls. PSP covers 25+ municipalities and has at most 6 troopers on duty. Bath will soon miss the coverage they have.

2:42 04 21 2018 your comments are wild ass and without merit and are probably a terminated officer or a disgruntled Bath resident. Good Luck.