Upper Darby is weeks behind on its 2025 budget following lawsuits and tense clashes with residents

Three weeks into the new year, one of Pennsylvania’s largest municipalities has still not approved a 2025 budget — flying past its Dec. 31 deadline after a lawsuit scuttled council members’ initial attempt.

Upper Darby Township officials are scheduled to vote on their 2025 budget in late February, alongside a new earned income tax that would take effect halfway through the year.

The vote follows a two-month debacle that began when a local judge struck down a township tax ordinance just before Thanksgiving, erasing more than $15 million from the approved budget.

In the time since, members of the township council have made several attempts at amending their budget as they faced criticism from residents and conflict over the best way forward and the procedures they must follow.

So how did they get to this point?

In September, the Upper Darby Township Council approved a new 1% earned income tax set to take effect this month. The tax would have increased the township’s revenues by more than $15 million.

But the tax measure was invalidated.

Council members approved the tax at the same meeting they passed a resolution limiting public comment for public hearings and applied those limitations to the public hearing on the tax. Residents of Upper Darby sued to invalidate both policies, arguing that the council had used improper procedures in approving them and that the limits to public comment were unconstitutional.

“We, as residents, were just tired of the township making up the rules as they went along,” said John DeMasi, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, which was filed in late September. DeMasi, a Republican from Drexel Hill, began attending council meetings in 2023 after hearing the council had blocked a community member from speaking at meetings because he wasn’t a resident.

Days before Thanksgiving, a Delaware County judge sided with the residents and struck down both policies because the council had voted to enact them in the first meeting of the month, which is meant to be a workshop meeting rather than a voting meeting.

The decision sent council members and the administration back to the drawing board, as the approved budget was now missing a massive chunk of revenue. They will operate off their 2024 budget until a new budget is approved, Upper Darby Mayor Ed Brown said.

Township officials have said they disagreed with the ruling, but they did not appeal it and are working to find a new path forward.

Hafiz Tunis, the president of the council, noted that similar procedural errors had been made under prior councils without drawing legal action. For more than a year, council meetings have featured tense exchanges between residents and council members.

“Some people … are really focused on slowing down the progress of this new administration, and they believe that’s a path to victory,” said Tunis, who added that he viewed the lawsuit as politically motivated and part of an effort among some to slow down progress within the Democratic-controlled council.

DeMasi, who filed the suit, said the suggestion that he and others acted politically was a frustrating cliché. Residents, he said, were pushed to sue by the council’s decision to limit public comment and members' “blatant disregard for free speech.”

“We literally stood up and read the law, and they ignored it. That’s not a right or left [issue], that’s not a Republican or Democrat. You have to respect the residents, period,” he said.

Council member Laura Wentz, a former chair of the council who unsuccessfully ran for mayor last year and has persistently clashed with Tunis, said the budget fiasco was a consequence of leadership’s disregard for township procedure. Wentz is a former Democrat who is now unaffiliated.

“If only they would follow the laws in the Home Rule Charter and weren’t afraid to hear from the public,” Wentz said. “If only they would allow people to speak freely for a couple of hours or so, then the administration and council majority would not be in this situation.”

Residents and members of the council’s minority faction have for months pointed to the township’s former solicitor, Sean Kilkenny, as a source of the council’s issues. Kilkenny, Montgomery County’s elected sheriff, is an influential Democrat in the Philadelphia suburbs whose firm represents dozens of townships as solicitor.

Critics in Upper Darby argued Kilkenny had offered the council bad advice in regard to the resolution limiting speech and a variety of other issues. Kilkenny, they argued, financially benefited from offering bad advice because he would then represent the township when it was sued.

In a council meeting in December, Republican council member Meaghan Wagner called for Kilkenny to be replaced, citing the high fees he had received for representing Upper Darby in two cases he lost.

Kilkenny resigned in early January. He said controversy and resident frustrations did not cause him to leave. But he indicated that representing the township had become cumbersome.

“Upper Darby is, like I said, a contentious place. All of your decisions are questioned and many of them litigated, so you always have to be on your toes when you’re Upper Darby solicitor,” Kilkenny said. “I was happy to do that, but I’m also happy to focus my attention on other clients.”

Kilkenny spent five years as solicitor for the township. Brown said that he appreciated much of what the solicitor had done, but that there were some issues.

“There were some mistakes by the solicitor and there were some missteps and mistakes, and those were concerning, but it was his decision to resign and step down from that role,” he said.

Last week, the township council introduced a new budget for 2025, which puts off some projects and pulls money from the county’s reserve funds to fill gaps left by the lost tax revenue. Council members also swiftly moved to introduce a new 1% earned income tax that would, if approved, take effect over the summer. The original tax was struck down too late for council members to reintroduce and approve it.

The introduction came after weeks of back-and-forth in the council as Brown’s administration recommended paths forward but residents and council members, including Wentz and Wagner, insisted the township was, once again, not following proper procedures.

“The inability to pass a timely budget is a failure to articulate a clear vision for the future of this township,” Wagner said.

Efforts to pass a budget before the end of the calendar year were ultimately tabled before the process was restarted. Brown said he also wanted to ensure the township took ample time to review the new budget before moving forward. The delay ultimately helped the township avoid a property tax hike council members had considered.

But the decision was also driven in part by the sense that residents who disagreed politically would be inclined to challenge the budget.

“We have a group of citizens who watch closely how our legislative process goes, and we can be taken to court if they feel like we’re doing something amiss,” Brown said.