Finance committee recommends reclassifying solid-waste loan as transfer to address trash-fee cash‑flow

The Narberth Borough Finance & Administration Committee recommended reclassifying a prior transfer recorded as a loan from the general fund to the solid‑waste fund as a permanent transfer, citing predictable first‑quarter cash‑flow shortfalls tied to the borough’s trash-fee billing schedule.

Borough Treasurer Miss Dobbs told the committee that because trash fees are collected with property taxes each spring, the borough “doesn’t get a lot of our revenue for our trash fees prior to the March, early April,” causing a recurring deficit in the first three months of the year. She said the timing is a cash‑flow issue, not a collections problem, and that the accounting change will be recorded in the borough’s software and reflected in the annual audit.

The recommendation follows a year in which staff moved funds from the general fund into the solid‑waste fund to cover operating bills while awaiting fee collections. Miss Dobbs said the minimum balance held in the solid‑waste fund had been set “to about a hundred and 75,000, which was the amount of that loan,” and recommended increasing that buffer when the 2026 budget is prepared because the trash contract has grown substantially.

Committee members voted unanimously to recommend the reclassification to the full council. No additional appropriation was requested; the committee described the step as an accounting reclassification of dollars already moved between funds.

Clarifying details from the discussion: the staff explanation framed the issue as recurring timing differences between when trash collection invoices are due and when property‑tax‑based trash fees are received; staff recommended holding a larger fund balance going forward and considering a small fee increase in next year’s budget to prevent future short‑term borrowing between funds.

The measure will appear on the council agenda for formal adoption and audit recording.