Audit confirms town’s financial woes, consultant says

Middletown is struggling to pay its bills and and may face bankruptcy within five years if steps aren’t taken to free up cash, financial consultant Mark Morgan said during his presentation of a long-awaited 2011 audit to Borough Council on Monday, June 3.

The delay in borough auditor Zelenkofske Axelrod’s completion of the annual audit of borough funds has been a cause of speculation among residents critical of council, some of whom pointed to the borough’s $70 million in funds and assets documented in the audit as proof that the borough’s alleged financial problems are fabricated.

Not so, says Morgan. By January 2013, the borough had just $1.7 million in spendable cash available - and it needs a $1.5 million fund balance at the beginning of each year to cover expenses until tax revenue starts to come in during April, he said.

“I’ve been doing this 32 years. I don’t misstate numbers and government: You have $1.7 million,” Morgan said. “That’s pretty much the minimum balance we can have in the general fund . . . We were kind of sweating it until April when taxes started coming in.  We’re really at our bare bones. We can’t go any lower.”

The borough can’t go any lower, but it just might, due to decreased electric system profits caused by council’s reduction of electric rates and the “significant trend” in the borough of people switching from electric to gas heating due to the cheaper cost of gas, Morgan said.

Steelton-Highspire basketball star Malia Tate-DeFreitas has been named to Parade magazine’s All-America girls’ basketball team, one of only 40 players to receive the national recognition.

The list, revealed last month, honors the top teenage athletes across the nation.

Tate-DeFreitas, who graduated this month from high school, said she was surprised and happy to be recognized. She learned about the honor from her mother.

Middletown’s water and sewer system is your money. Do you want it now?

The borough, at least according to some, has both a cash shortage and an embarrassment of riches in non-liquid assets, including a recently upgraded water treatment plant on which the borough is paying debt.

Local Memorial Day events honor heroes

On Memorial Day, we remembered the men and women who died serving our country in wartime. We honored their sacrifice with parades, laid flowers on their graves, hung flags from our porches to celebrate the freedoms for which they fought.

In Middletown, veterans’ organizations held a parade Monday, May 27, led by grand marshal Karl Krodel, an Army veteran of the Korean War, and a ceremony at Middletown Cemetery that featured student John Hursh’s reading of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,’’ prayers and speeches, and patriotic music by Middletown Area High School’s Blue Wave band.

It ended with a salute, a benediction and “Taps,’’ played by a high school bugler.

Hummelstown also hosted a parade, while Highspire hosted a Memorial Day ceremony at Memorial Park.

At Arlington National Cemetery, 220,000 flags were placed on the graves of fallen soldiers. Memorial Day began soon after the Civil War to honor the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the conflict, but eventually was extended to honor all those in the military who died defending the U.S.

Photos by Beth Moore Baker