West Penn Township supervisors said there are no plans to disband the township’s police department.

More than 30 residents attended Monday morning’s board meeting, many of whom - by a show of hands - said they were there in support of police.

“I just want to clear up some rumors and innuendos. We are not closing the police department,” supervisors’ Chairman Anthony Prudenti said before the start of the public comment portion.

Supervisor Glenn Hummel, who attended by phone, called the talk a rumor and said the board didn’t discuss a closure “at all.”

“Chief? Have we discussed closing the police department?” Prudenti asked police Chief Jim Bonner.

“Not shutting it down completely, no,” Bonner said.

But supervisor Tim Houser said if a department is operating with a deficit, changes need to be made.

“When it comes down to the budget, whether it be the road crew, supervisors, the office or the police department, when we look at the budget, everything and anything is on the table. We have to stay within our budget because we are not going to operate in the red,” he said.

And so, in recent weeks, supervisors have ordered some changes to keep the department’s budget in check.

One of them was to reduce officers’ and an administrative secretary’s hours, and another was to have Pennsylvania State Police on call for one shift each day.

Those particular controls were lifted by a split vote at Monday’s meeting, however, the department’s secretary will continue to work only 20 of her usual 40 hours.

Houser said rumors of a department closure likely started when supervisors asked Bonner to reduce his staff’s hours.

“Because as of this month, he was over his budget substantially,” Houser said. “We wanted to bring that budget back in line.”

Houser said that the cut on hours, along with some other recommended changes, appear to be helping.

If the changes don’t bring any substantial results by year’s end, however, he said the township would have to raise taxes to continue police coverage. Houser said that as the numbers stand now, he budget will be “back in line” by year’s end.

Hummel said the board keeps a check on all departments’ budgets and said the police budget was “way over” in June.

Prudenti said the police budget for 2023 is about $400,000. By June, he saw that it was about $25,000 over projected figures. Prudenti noted that many of the extra expenses were for equipment and other necessities purchased for use during the year. The purchases, he said, were once and done.

The department will also see a savings through the resignation of full-time officer Kai Appel. Supervisors accepted his resignation Monday.

A full-time officer’s salary and benefits is close to $70,000.

“We don’t have another full-timer to replace that. We’re just using part-timers” to fill shifts until the end of the year, Prudenti said.

Prudenti motioned to reinstate the hours of all officers and the administrative secretary and drop Pennsylvania State Police coverage.

“I feel that the chief has shown us that by the end of the year we will be OK,” Prudenti said.

His motion died for lack of a second.

Hummel said he didn’t want to reinstate the administrative hours right away - and would rather have an officer on the streets.

“My vote again is always going to be that if when it comes to putting an officer on the street or having an administrative clerk, the officer will be on the street,” he said.

Bonner said the administrative secretary assists officers with a variety of duties so the force can spend more time on patrol.

“The police department needs a full-time secretary. It cannot operate without one,” he said.

Houser motioned to return all police department employees - except the secretary - back to their normal hours, and cut out the Pennsylvania State Police coverage. The board will reevaluate the budget frequently in hopes of removing all other financial controls and reinstating the secretary to full time employment.

Hummel seconded the motion. Prudenti voted “no.”

After the vote, an audience member asked why the board couldn’t follow the budget and schedule that Bonner had prepared for his department the rest of the year.

Township solicitor Paul Datte said a motion would be needed to rescind the previous motion and vote. Prudenti made an attempt to rescind but it was not seconded.

Also during the meeting, Bonner said that the department issued more than 1,200 citations to date, and responded to more than 1,400 incidents.

The citations will bring in about $202,000.

Most of them are for speeding - a concern Bonner said he hears often.

“We are out on the highway. We’re running our LPRs (license plate readers) and we’re clocking people at the same time,” he said. “I understand people don’t like that and it may not look good but it’s effective. It’s called saturation patrol.”