A preliminary 2025 budget was approved by Hellertown Borough Council at Monday’s council meeting, but changes to it are possible before the final 2025 budget is voted on in December.
There was substantial disagreement among council members regarding a discussion about expanded staffing of the borough’s police department. Essentially, council considered three options for the department’s personnel budget, none of which would require a tax increase: keeping staffing status quo with 10 borough officers, adding one position (with money budgeted for a sergeant position) or budgeting the funds for two more corporal positions.
One issue is that the borough doesn’t technically have 10 active officers at the moment, as two are out on medical leave and it doesn’t appear they will be returning to the force anytime soon.
“Unequivocally, we’re down two officers, so we’re behind the eight-ball to begin with,” said Hellertown Police Chief James Baitinger. “I’m looking at my proposal was for two additional officers to ideally have a 12-man police department. I’m going to reference the PA Chiefs’ report. They said to hire four additional supervisors, and I’m in agreement with you, that’s not tenable in the near future. But what we need to do is to move forward.”
The PCPA report was commissioned by council after former Hellertown Police Chief Robert Shupp III was charged with stealing over $120,000 in borough funds throughout the course of his employment. Shupp resigned in October 2023 and was charged last December.
Baitinger said his part-time officers are working a ton of hours, and there’s a concern that some of them could look for other employment opportunities in bordering counties and municipalities.
“We have officers who are exhausted. I’m putting, unfortunately, one person out on a shift. I don’t ever want to experience an officer getting hurt on a shift because we didn’t put another officer with that person,” he told council. “We’d have to hire a boatload more part-timers because there are rules where we are only allowed to let part-timers work so many hours. We have problems now, and we have five part-timers.”
Councilman Andrew Hughes said he opposed expanding the police department’s size in 2025.
“One of the things I’ve been trying to stress over the last year is about thinking strategically,” he said. “We have to understand we have to know where we want to be with police services (and) fire services, and I’m not sure that we’re doing that right now.”
Hughes said he isn’t opposed to expanding police services in the future. He added that the May report on the department issued by the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association lacked information about critical subjects that could help with that, including subjects such as community needs, financial analysis and workflow analysis.
“Frankly, that police chief’s report was lacking in all of those areas. When we challenged them on that…(they said) we don’t do that, or we don’t do this. The only thing is we look at is this one segment. Right from that narrow vision of that one segment, yes, a lot of what we’re saying is true. Again, we’re not looking at the big picture, we’re not looking at strategy,” Hughes said.
Councilwoman Liz Thompson said she agreed with Hughes and that 2025 should be viewed as a “transition” year.
“I don’t see hiring full-time staff and our increased health insurance costs as part of that transition,” she said. “I think it’s a double-edged sword. In order to have a police department, we need to have officers, but I do think that there are opportunities or things that have not been fully explored just based on the timing of when we found our chief and when budget season comes up.”
“In a perfect world we could give the chief everything and have our police department be the successful department that I would like to see it be going forward into the future,” she added. “But with the budget situation that Hellertown currently has, looking at what our median household incomes are and what the impact to our residents would be with what’s proposed, I’m really struggling.”
Baitinger responded to the discussion by acknowledging that “if I sound like I’m getting upset, I am a little bit.”
“I know you hired me to do a job,” he said. “I’m giving you a fair assessment, trying to be fiscally responsible…”
“I think your passion is appreciated,” Thompson replied. “I think that unfortunately there were some conversations that council had again about personnel matters and litigation that we can’t discuss here, that we were told would come to you before you started, and I don’t think those conversations happened. But again, can’t have that conversation because we’re in a public setting.”
Following their discussion, council members struggled to agree on one of the police staffing options on the table, with three different motions failing by roll call vote.
“I recommend, as a compromise, you pick one (of the three options) and advertise it,” said solicitor Michael Corriere. “Then, you can have two more weeks to discuss it.”
A fourth motion in favor of hiring one additional officer that seemed to represent a compromise then passed 4-3.
“Strategically, there is only so much Hellertown can do on our own,” said council president Tom Rieger. “I think we have an obligation from a tactical manner that things are covered from a day-to-day manner, but you’re absolutely right from a strategic level. Some of the answers to these questions are not at the Hellertown level, and they have to be at the county level.”
“At the end of the day, you’re never going to be able to have a full-time fire department or 24 officers. You’re never going to be able to do that in Hellertown,” he added.
Borough council’s next meeting is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 2 at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall and livestreaming. More information about upcoming meetings may be found on the borough’s website.