At Thursday evening’s Kidder Township Supervisors meeting, four uniformed police officers stood at the back of the meeting room.

On any other meeting night, there may be only the chief, or the officer on duty.

The reason for the increased police presence became evident as the proposed 2018 budget was unveiled. A line item that was proposed showed a decrease of more than $80,000 in funds to be allocated to the police department, while the overall budget called for a tax increase of 1.3 mills.

“I just want to ask if it’s true,” said township resident and retired state trooper Jim Surmick. “You are increasing taxes and I hear rumors of a police layoff.”

“It is true we are raising taxes,” said Chairman Thomas Bradley Jr. “We haven’t made a decision about the layoff yet.”

Surmick made it clear that he advocates for a strong police force.

“You have phenomenal police officers in this township,” Surmick said. “We have a drug problem in this area. This police force is the difference between the sheep and the wolves. I don’t know how you justify $400,000 for the volunteer fire department while you talk about laying off police officers.”

“Our intention is to keep a full complement of emergency services as our budget supports,” Bradley said.

Police Chief Matthew Kuzma said he was not at liberty to discuss the matter at this time.

Following the discussion, supervisors approved the proposed budget, raising the millage from 5.65 mills to 6.95 mills.

The largest increase comes in the emergency services tax revenue.

In 2017, the emergency services tax totaled 2.25 mills, or $464,031. Under the newly proposed budget, the tax revenue increases to $674,000.

Of that amount, Lake Harmony and Albrightsville Volunteer Fire companies will each receive $103,043, which is roughly a $30,000 increase for each department over 2017. Lake Harmony Rescue Squad will receive $267,914 in 2018, which represents only a fractional increase over the previous year.

There is also a new line item in the 2018 budget.

Fire Cap Equipment will receive $200,000, which will be set aside for future vehicle purchases.

At the same time, the 2018 budget slashes the public safety expenditures by $79,350. Public safety is strictly the township’s police department.

The patrol officers’ salary line item was also cut by $95,800 while the part-time officers’ line item is only increased by $13,000.

The proposed budget can now be viewed at the township building. The supervisors will adopt the new budget at their Dec. 21 meeting.

In other police business, Kuzma got the go-ahead to hire additional part-time officers before next month’s supervisors meeting though.

He said he was looking to hire up to three part-time patrol officers.

Kuzma also informed the supervisors that a new policy was being implemented to have officers carry and be trained in using naloxone, which is used when an opioid overdose is suspected. Street opioids are frequently cut with fentanyl.

“The Narcan is not just to protect the general public,” Kuzma said. “But our officers as well. Three tiny grains of fentanyl could be deadly.”

Kuzma added that in a recent drug bust, one of the seized drugs turned out to be pure fentanyl.

Kuzma said that an agreement will be signed with Lehighton Ambulance to provide the naloxone free of charge to the department.