Hatboro Borough Council Meeting Schedule Not Changing

HATBORO, PA — Back in the day not so long ago, the Hatboro Borough Council would hold a committee meeting and a council meeting each month.

Those meetings would be consolidated during the summer months. But for months now, the borough never returned to the schedule of two meetings a month.

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And they won't be.

Despite residents' requests to go back to the old schedule, the Hatboro Borough Council will stick to a meeting a month.

But the borough may decide to move the night of its meetings as to not conflict with the Monday night meetings of the Hatboro-Horsham School District and residents wanting to attend that meeting.

At its September meeting, Borough Council considered a proposal to return to holding two meetings per month during certain months of the year.

After discussion, the motion did not pass, and the Council elected to continue with its current meeting schedule.

As part of its review of the meeting schedule, Borough staff presented Council with an analysis comparing the costs associated with holding one meeting per month versus two meetings per month.

The analysis considered factors including agenda and packet preparation, public meeting materials, staff time, professional service costs, advertising expenses, and other administrative requirements associated with conducting public meetings.

Borough staff also reviewed meeting schedules across neighboring municipalities and found that Hatboro is not unique in utilizing a once-per-month meeting schedule.

Of the 62 municipalities surveyed, 33 currently hold one regular meeting per month, while the remaining municipalities hold two meetings per month, officials said.

The municipalities meeting once per month included 12 boroughs, with the remainder being townships.

These statistics are only for Montgomery County, officials said.

"We did look at meeting schedules for Bucks County as well and found many only held one meeting per month," officials said.

After considering the operational needs of the borough, the associated costs, and practices by other municipalities, the Borough Council determined that one regular meeting per month remains sufficient to conduct business while also representing a responsible use of taxpayer funds.