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Lancaster Township officials on April 18 will consider an ordinance designed to stem the tide of flooding.

The proposed ordinance would limit the rate at which stormwater can be released from a newly developed property to 90% of the rate at which stormwater flowed from the site prior to development.

Currently, township ordinances limit stormwater release rates after development to 100% of the predevelopment rates. The new ordinance would slow the release of stormwater by 10%.

A similar ordinance has recently been adopted or considered by other communities in the lower Connoquenessing Watershed flooding group, a 10-municipality consortium in the county’s southern tier that aims to decrease the amount of and devastation from flooding in the region.

“This is consistent with the other nine municipalities looking to modify the release rate to be consistent in the lower Connoquenessing Watershed to make up for some past issues that all the communities have, some stormwater issues,” township engineer Tom Thompson said during a Monday agenda preparation meeting.

Township supervisors Monday also heard from Katie Yates, a certified public accountant with Maher Duessel, with regard to the township’s annual audit.

Yates said auditors found no substantial issues with the township’s financial practices in 2021, but noted some minor recommendations. She also said the township experienced significant difficulties in 2021 with respect to management and staffing.

“A lot of the things that are included in this letter as recommendations; we know that you’re working on improving those things,” Yates said. “So we would anticipate that, hopefully, a lot of these things will not be an issue going forward. But I’ll briefly mention (the recommendations) – segregation of duties, bank statement reconciliation review, a couple payroll things, credit card receipt policies and some IT comments – just to tighten up controls there.”