The $23,000-a-Day Question: Ephrata spends $8.5 million a year for police. What are we actually buying?

The Invoice Arrives

Every year, Ephrata property owners receive a tax bill. A massive chunk of that bill goes to one place: The Police Department. We are told this is the price of safety. We are told that we have a "Gold Standard" department that warrants premium funding.

But after the Gerlach investigation revealed a two-year failure to detect a house of horrors just 0.6 miles from headquarters, it is time to audit the books. We pulled the numbers from the 2025 Borough Budget, the Ephrata Township Police Contract, and the Capital Improvement Plan. The total cost of operating this department is approximately $8.5 million per year.

That breaks down to:

• $163,000.00 per week.
• $23,287.00 per day.
• $970.00 per hour.

Every hour that Jonathan Gerlach was sawing bones in his basement, the taxpayers of Ephrata were paying the police department $970 to stop him. They didn't. They were too busy spending your money on things that had nothing to do with stopping him.

Where Does the Money Go? (The Audit)

If it wasn't going toward investigating the smell of death on Washington Avenue, where was it going? We broke down the line items.

1. The "Pension Bubble" & The 5% Resolution

According to the December 2, 2024 Borough Council Minutes, the Council unanimously approved Resolution 2024-34. This resolution set the police pension contribution at 5% of gross pay.

• The Reality: While most private sector employees in Ephrata are struggling with inflation and 401(k) volatility, we are funding a defined-benefit pension system that guarantees officers a comfortable retirement regardless of performance.
• The Cost: Personnel costs (salaries + benefits) make up nearly 82% of the total police budget. We are paying for the people, not the protection. When those people fail to detect a serial criminal, we are essentially funding their incompetence in perpetuity.

2. The "Cruiser Parade" (Capital Improvement Fund)

In the 2025 Budget discussions, Council authorized a $400,000 transfer to the "Mobile Equipment Fund." This isn't just for gas and oil. It’s for the fleet. You see them everywhere: sleek, unmarked SUVs with "ghost graphics" (tone-on-tone lettering that is invisible at night) and aggressive push-bars.

• The Question: Why does a small borough need "stealth" interceptors?
• The Answer: To catch speeders. Ghost graphics are designed for traffic enforcement, not community patrolling. They are designed to hide from you, the taxpayer, so they can write you a ticket.
• The Failure: A $60,000 interceptor with a V8 engine is useless if it just drives past a crime scene without stopping. Gerlach wasn't speeding. He was rotting. And the fancy cars missed him entirely.

3. The "Surveillance Tax"

We spent thousands on License Plate Readers (LPRs) and a $5,000 reallocation for Body Worn Cameras. The department argued this technology was essential for "modern policing."

• What LPRs Do: They scan thousands of plates a day to flag expired registrations, suspended licenses, and stolen cars.
• What LPRs Don't Do: Detect the smell of a decomposing body.
• The Result: The technology worked exactly as intended—it generated revenue from inspection stickers. But because Gerlach (or his buyers) didn't trigger a database flag, the "smart" cameras were completely blind to the moral atrocity occurring in plain sight.

The "Activity Report" Deception

To understand why they missed Gerlach, look at what they brag about. In the Ephrata Police Annual Reports and monthly updates to Council, the metrics of "success" are revealing. They track:

• Traffic Citations Issued (Revenue).
• Summary Offenses (Disorderly conduct, public drunkenness).
• Parking Tickets (Main Street enforcement).

They do not track "Neighborhood Canvas Hours" or "Community Trust Building." The department is optimized for Volume Enforcement, not Investigative Depth. They are built to process low-level "crimes" that pay fines, not complex crimes that require work.

Quote from the Minutes (Aug 2023):

“Chief McKim noted that the department is fully staffed and aggressive in its enforcement of traffic safety zones.” Translation: We are fully staffed to write tickets. We are empty-handed on actual threats.

The Township Connection

The Ephrata Township Supervisors also have questions to answer. According to the 2025 Police Services Contract, the Township pays the Borough a fixed cost of over $2.1 million annually for police coverage. Township residents (living in the farmlands and suburbs) are subsidizing the Borough’s department.

• The Pitch: Chief McKim sold this contract by promising "exceptional service" and "fast response times."
• The Reality: The Township paid $2.1 million for a department that couldn't smell a decomposing body three blocks from their own desk.

The "Loyalty Credit" Insult

In a twist of irony, the new contract included a "$200,000 Loyalty Credit" to the Township for signing a 5-year deal.

• What it is: A corporate-style retention bonus to keep the Township from forming its own department or contracting with the State Police (which would be free).
• What it means: It sounds like a discount. In reality, it’s a bribe to keep the monopoly intact. They gave a discount on the price, but the product remained defective.

The Consumer Protection Argument

If you paid $8.5 million for a home security system, and burglars lived in your basement for two years without the alarm going off, you wouldn't just be mad. You would sue ADT. You would demand a refund. You would cancel the contract.

But in Ephrata, we don't get a refund. We get a tax hike. In November 2024, the Ephrata Township Supervisors voted to raise taxes by 0.1 mills.

• The Justification: Explicitly cited in the meeting agenda was "the additional cost of police services."
• The Math: If your home is assessed at $250,000, you are paying extra this year specifically to fund the department that missed the House of Skulls.

We are paying more for a department that delivered less.

Defunding vs. Demanding

This is not an argument for "Defunding the Police" in the political sense. It is an argument for Demanding Value.

• We pay for investigations, not just traffic stops.
• We pay for detectives, not just crossing guards.
• We pay for safety, not just "Safe, Clean, and Green" aesthetics.

When the Yeadon Police (who we don't pay) do a better job than the Ephrata Police (who we overpay), the social contract is broken. The "Gold Standard" has rusted.

The $23,000 Question

Tomorrow, the sun will rise, and the Ephrata Police Department will cost us another $23,287. Jonathan Gerlach is in jail, no thanks to them. So, taxpayers, look at Line 4 of your tax bill. Look at that number. And ask yourself: Are you getting what you paid for?

🚨 Continue the Investigation

The money is gone. The trust is broken. Next, My personal story of being targeted by the same system that ignored the monster next door.

⬅️ Previous: Chapter 14: One Mile Away (The Jurisdictional Failure)

➡️ Next: Chapter 16: Zoning as a Weapon

More on Vocal from Sunshine Firecracker☀️🧨:

• Inside the House of Skulls: The Complete Investigation (Master Hub)
• The Man Who Collected Death: A Profile of Jonathan Gerlach
• Is Your Town Hall Breaking the Law? A Citizen's Guide to Official Oppression in Pennsylvania

COPYRIGHT & TRADEMARK NOTICE © 2026 Sunshine Firecracker / Dr. Jennifer Gayle Sappington, J.D. All Rights Reserved.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER The content provided in this article is for informational, educational, and advocacy purposes only.

EDITORIAL NOTE Financial figures sourced from Ephrata Borough Council Minutes (Dec 2, 2024), Resolution 2024-34, and Ephrata Township Meeting Minutes (Nov 2024). Daily cost calculated based on approx. $8.5M total annual police budget.