While the headlines commend Kennett Square for another year without a property tax increase, money continues to flow into — and out of — the borough’s water and sewer fund to cover what it can’t afford.

“The borough is spending to the limit. It is seven straight years of water, sewer and trash fees going up,” resident John Thomas said in a Daily Local News report. And $740,000 of that utility surplus is being funneled into the general fund.

To correct that 16-year bad habit, members of the borough council are contemplating cutting all support of local nonprofits — including Historic Kennett Square, the Kennett Public Library and Kennett Area Parks and Recreation.

“The general fund is a train wreck,” Councilman Dan Maffei said in the article. “… One of the misperceptions is that there is a lot of prosperity in this town. Businesses are opening, and (there’s) the look and the appearances of wealth here. In reality, it looks good, but the borough still has some financial work to do before we are in good shape. I don’t like transferring $700,000, but that’s where our debt is. We can’t fix this problem overnight.”

Indeed, shedding nonprofit support would only make back $120,000. Residents have also called for raising more revenue from nonprofits and trimming pay raises back to actual cost of living increases.

“Taxpayers are not getting the same break you are giving (borough workers),” Thomas articulated.

Read much more about the Kennett Square budget predicament and what the borough council is thinking in the Daily Local News here.