Franklin Township residents will still see an increase in their municipal tax rate this year despite an attempt by a newly-appointed supervisor to do away with it.

On a 2-0 vote, with one abstention, supervisors voted on Tuesday to eliminate a previously approved 1-mill tax increase for this year.

Newly-elected board Chairman Jason Frey made a motion to do away with the municipal tax increase that had been passed for 2025.

Both Frey and Supervisor Leroy Kemmerer Jr., who earlier in the meeting was named vice chairman of the board, voted in favor.

However, Supervisor Fred Kemmerer Jr., who began Tuesday’s meeting as board chairman, abstained from the vote because he wasn’t certain of the legality of such a move.

The vote, which came after Frey was sworn in earlier during Tuesday’s meeting to fill a vacant seat on the board, said he wanted to discuss the budget, and why the township had a 1-mill tax increase.

Frey said he thinks it’s wrong that the board raised taxes when it had a $500,000 surplus, and then proposed that it eliminate the 1-mill tax increase that had previously been approved for this year.

But, township solicitor Tom Nanovic said that by not having the matter on the agenda, he wasn’t sure if the board could take such action.

Resident Ty Poole said he wouldn’t see where anyone in the township would be upset if the board were able to eliminate the tax increase.

Regardless, Nanovic said, “It’s about doing things the right way.”

Resident Jill Renfrew said that as a citizen, she protests that the board was taking all of these actions without the items being listed on Tuesday’s meeting agenda.

Renfrew added that if she was a resident who was not in attendance at the meeting, she would be upset that these matters were being acted on without their prior knowledge.

Melissa Melewsky, Pennsylvania NewsMedia attorney, contacted by email Thursday, agreed.

“A tax increase, or the repeal of one, cannot be added to the agenda during a public meeting. It’s not an emergency, and it is not de minimis, so at most, council could have voted to add it to the agenda for the next meeting for discussion and action.”

Renfrew added that she didn’t believe that a $500,000 surplus is exorbitant for the township.

Contacted Thursday morning, Frey said that despite the board’s vote on Tuesday, township residents will still see a 1-mill tax increase this year.

Frey said that following Tuesday’s meeting, he had spoken with the township’s tax collector who has already done all the work to print out everyone’s taxes that are going to be mailed out.

“Instead of making her do the work to redo everything and get them prepared and sent out and cost the taxpayers’ money, we are going to at the next meeting rescind that motion and the taxes will remain at the same rate as was passed in December,” Frey said. “The budget they passed (in December for this year) will remain the same, but at the end of this year when we get to budget time, we will address the 1-mill tax increase, we will do away with that 1-mill increase at that time for the 2026 budget.

“We were too late with doing it (by the time Frey got appointed on Tuesday to fill the vacant seat) for this year so the people of Franklin are still going to have to absorb the 1-mill increase. “We will address it for 2026.”

In December, the former board of supervisors adopted the 2025 budget with a 1-mill increase that raised the township’s millage rate from 7.64 to 8.64 mills.

Supervisor Leroy Kemmerer Jr. was absent from that meeting.

As part of the budget, there is a $30 increase in garbage collection.

Regular customers who paid $255 in 2024 will pay $285 this year. The senior rate didn’t increase and will remain at $170.

Kemmerer said the purpose of the increase in garbage collection is that instead of it taking 15 years to replace garbage trucks under its current system, this would move that process to about seven to eight years.

Then Supervisor Robin Cressley said that a garbage truck costs almost $300,000.

Fred Kemmerer Jr. said that it’s because of the deficit the township had between income and expenses for the 2025 budget that the budget requires a 1-mill increase.

That represented the first tax increase in the township since 2010, when taxes were raised by 1.5 mills.