The decision by East Greenville to maintain its municipal police department could impact the makeup of Pennsburg's department. On Wednesday, Jan. 24, Pennsburg borough council scheduled a special meeting to discuss "borough finances and issues of collective bargaining," according to a public notice published in a local daily newspaper. According to Member Diane Stevens, the plan is to discuss the status of Pennsburg's police department.

            Stevens said her municipality will have to "take another look at the size" of the Upper Perk Police Department if East Greenville Borough Council chooses to maintain its own police department.

            "Unless we can find another municipality that wants to contract with us, or East Greenville wants to come back in, we don't have many options left," she said Monday. "We can't sustain this department by ourselves. If people want the UPPD as we know it, they need to come out to the meetings now before it is too late."

            On Tuesday, Stevens issued a vociferous objection to the timing of the meeting and method by which it was advertised.

            "I am extremely upset how this is being done so fast and not advertised in our local paper," she wrote in a text. "This is not the platform I ran on (twice). One could interpret it as being devious. This is a smack in the face to our residents and taxpayers in my opinion, not giving them ample time or notice for a finance meeting of this magnitude."  

            According to Pennsburg council President Kris Kirkwood, his borough will be unable to fully fund its eight officer department – including Chief Michael Devlin – indefinitely without that payment from the neighboring borough. Kirkwood did not want to specify how much longer that could occur before other services would be adversely affected.

            "I don't want to go into specifics," he said Monday afternoon. "I do not have the numbers in front of me."

            Since the dissolution of the Upper Perk Police Commission in June, Pennsburg's police costs have increased. Municipal officials transferred $462,668 from savings to cover a negative fund balance. According to an estimated year end change in fund balance documents obtained through a Right to Know request, the borough spent $223,000 for coverage during the final two months of 2017. It spent $124,656 over the final quarter as a member of the Upper Perk Police Commission.

            Auditor Gregory S. Ede told the members that the cost of operating the Upper Perk Police Department accounted for a major amount of that deficit, according to the minutes from the Nov. 15, 2017 public meeting. Municipal officials anticipated the additional expense, according to council President Kris Kirkwood.

            Pennsburg council allocated $1.361 million for the department in 2018. However, the borough's current budget does not anticipate a transfer to cover similar expenses, or any other public services according to Kirkwood. He also said municipal officials expected to reach a fee-for-service police agreement with East Greenville.

            According to Stevens, the members agreed to spend the additional money in 2017 to preserve the force in anticipation that East Greenville would rejoin the department in one way or another in 2018.  She said that Pennsburg officials were expecting a contribution from East Greenville while they were putting the budget together.

            "We would not have held the department together if we knew East Greenville was not going to come back," she said Monday.

            Stevens expressed surprise by the vocal opposition of East Greenville residents to a tentative agreement between the two municipalities on round-the-clock police coverage in the borough. Earlier this month, East Greenville Mayor Keith Gerhart announced that the two boroughs reached an interim contractual agreement on round-the-clock police coverage in the borough. The 60-day agreement – negotiated by the mayor and president of each council – calls for the Upper Perk police to provide round-the-clock coverage in East Greenville for a monthly fee of $42,500.

            Last week, East Greenville council – the majority of whose members successfully ran on a platform of returning the Pennsburg department to the municipality – presented a series of proposed general fund budget changes, including the elimination of a tax decrease and the allocation of $510,000 towards a fee for service contract with Pennsburg.

            On Tuesday, East Greenville council removed a motion from a Jan. 30 special meeting agenda to eliminate the Borough of East Greenville Police Department.