Lansdale Train Station.
Lansdale has a sobering reality coming to it in the next few years. By Fiscal Year 2020 our Post-Employment Benefits will likely exceed $4 million while our Capital Fund will be spent down on needed infrastructure repairs, and our operating revenue and expenditures will remain, relatively, flat. In other words, Lansdale will need to find new ways of generating additional revenue if we would like to continue to improve and maintain our community necessities.
Let me be clear, there is no way to “cut” our way out of this problem. Sure, Lansdale will find areas of waste and be sure to cut them as we find them. However, that amount would never reach the monetary totals we would need to both maintain our infrastructure and continue to provide high quality service to residents’ while being financially responsible for the benefits that are owed to retiring employees and officers. Additionally, this concern is not a new one. It did not crop up overnight. In fact, it has existed for the last 30-plus years. Historically, it was created through the desire to keep taxes low while expanding services. We were stealing from our future to pay for our desires today.
The practice of kicking the proverbial can down the road, thankfully, has come to an end over the last few years. However, ending poor budgeting practices is not enough. To achieve our community goals, we will need to build new services for residents to utilize. This will require thinking about futureproofing Lansdale so that we are providing the services that residents don’t just need now, but services they will value highly in the future.
A great example of futureproofing is Lansdale Electric. At the turn of the century, Lansdale started its own electric company because the community understood that it was a service that people would need for decades to come. Due to that forward-thinking idea, our community has been able to thrive off that monetary investment. Lansdale Electric has helped build parks, fix roads, and expand our police department over the last 100-plus years.
That begs the question of what should Lansdale invest in? What service can we provide the community that we would like now, but in ten years will become essential to our lives?
We will need residents help in the generation of the solution to this problem. No one person has a monopoly on good ideas and we should be considering options that are both feasible and valued by residents. I would like to encourage everyone in the community to help us generate ideas on what service we can provide Lansdale that will help steer it into a future that is fiscally secure and appealing to potential new residents as well.
The days of only focusing on today, tomorrow, or even this year are over. Now is time for us—all of us— to take a wider view and begin building the Lansdale that our kids will inherit.
See also:
Mayoral Musings: ‘ Our Collective Wisdom and Religious Diversity’
Mayoral Musings: ‘Lansdale’s Power Play’
Mayoral Musings: ‘Labor Day Squared’
Mayoral Musings: 'Of Course, This is About Founders Day'
Mayoral Musings: ‘It Takes a Village, or Perhaps a Borough’
