{"id":8448,"date":"2014-12-08T16:35:24","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T21:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=8448"},"modified":"2014-12-08T16:35:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T21:35:24","slug":"commissioners-approve-2015-budget-no-tax-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/?p=8448","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners approve 2015 budget, no tax increase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/ChesterCountyLogo-300x297.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-994455\" style=\"margin: 4px;\" alt=\"ChesterCountyLogo\" src=\"http:\/\/chescotimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/ChesterCountyLogo-300x297.jpg\" width=\"210\" height=\"208\" \/><\/a>WEST CHESTER \u2014 The Chester County Commissioners unanimously approved the 2015 budget\u00a0today, resulting in no tax increase for county residents.<\/p>\n<p>The 2015 budget calls for $432,499,283 in operating expenses and $89,531,813 for its capital\u00a0budget.\u00a0Chester County\u2019s tax rate remains one of the lowest in southeast Pennsylvania. For the past six\u00a0years the County has streamlined the operating costs of county departments and reduced the number of\u00a0full time employees. It has also undertaken regular reviews of health benefit costs which, combined with\u00a0the award-winning county employee wellness program, has resulted in a medical cost increase of less\u00a0than one percent, well below the national average increase in health costs.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The 2015 balanced budget includes a marginal increase in federal and state funding. Chester\u00a0County receives approximately 41 percent of its operating revenues from federal and state grants, which\u00a0are budgeted to increase by $.06 million, representing less than one percent increase over 2014. The\u00a0county\u2019s property tax base slightly increased. Chester County continues to actively manage its debt\u00a0requirements, with its Aaa\/AAA ratings being reaffirmed in October by Moody\u2019s, Standard &amp; Poor\u2019s and\u00a0Fitch Ratings.<\/p>\n<p>The 2015 budget aligns with the priorities and goals of Chester County\u2019s Strategic Plan which\u00a0were re-aligned in 2014. Six years of development and implementation of the Plan have led Chester\u00a0County to the achievement of a very high percentage of its goals, based on the six priority areas of Health,\u00a0Human Services &amp; Environment; Public Safety; Economy; Transportation; Growth; and Smart Financial\u00a0Management.<\/p>\n<p>The approved Chester County 2015 budget will be posted at www.chesco.org by Friday,\u00a0December 12, 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WEST CHESTER \u2014 The Chester County Commissioners unanimously approved the 2015 budget\u00a0today, resulting in no tax increase for county residents. The 2015 budget calls for $432,499,283 in operating expenses and $89,531,813 for its capital\u00a0budget.\u00a0Chester County\u2019s tax rate remains one of the lowest in southeast Pennsylvania. For the past six\u00a0years the County has streamlined the operating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5060,138,5086],"class_list":["post-8448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-budget-2015","tag-chester-county","tag-commisioners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chescotimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}