Kittanning Borough Secretary Betty Thompson looks over the 2011 budget as Council President Gerald Shuster addresses council members.
by Jonathan Weaver
Kittanning Borough council members approved a $2.5 million budget Monday 5-0 that keeps services and employees in place.
4th Ward Councilors Andy Peters and Richard Reedy were absent from the special meeting.
However, the budget includes a 1 ½ mill tax increase to bring the total to 24.5 mills. Each mill accounts for $28,300.
“The budget requires only a mill-in-a-half tax increase, but I know to some people any tax increase is hefty,” Shuster said. “Nobody likes to raise taxes, but this is one time that we had to bite the bullet and we did about everything we could do.”
Shuster thanked council members for their diligence and work during the past 3 ½ months to compromise on an adequate plan.
“All seven members who actively work on council were very diligent in putting together their time and effort for, literally, the employee contracts that were up this time and the budget meetings,” Shuster said. 1.40 “Unlike prior years, this was a committee as a whole – all members were participants and that’s why we were able to effectively achieve the goals that we achieved and lots of them are about to go into effect, starting with Tom’s (3rd Ward councilman Thomas Close) program in the sewage area and garbage all the way down to recreation and streets.”
3rd Ward Councilmen Ange Turco and Close said they are hesitant on what officials are to do if taxes are not paid, to which Shuster said councilors have to be more aggressive in tracking offenders.
“I don’t anticipate any levels of income that will be dramatically reduced that would put us in any financial bind,” Shuster said. “This council probably went over the budget in more minute detail than has been done in years.”
Shuster added it is hard to predict if real estate taxes will be paid regularly.
Close said he expects more from garbage collectors. He questioned how many cans are permitted in several locations, including Evergreen Homes, of 406 North Avenue, and recommended making the property considered a commercial entity as to dispose of garbage in a dumpster.
“It has to bring in a lot more money than it’s doing now,” Close said. “There’s nothing we can do to make the people pay. You can’t quit picking it up, and if you find them and they don’t pay the fine, what difference does that make? I think that we should take the garbage bills and the sewage bills and take them apart and make (garbage collection) a separate bill.
Borough Secretary Betty Thompson said borough officials shut off tax offender’s water service and recommends keeping the bills together.
“It saves so much money – you’d have double bills, double printing, double processing,” Thompson said. “You have to pay the full amount; say if its $100 for garbage and $100 for sewage, you’d have to pay that full $200. You pay the full amount before your water is turned on.”
Shuster said other borough officials have recommended a faster delinquent reporting system, which will be enforced in 2011.
“Beginning in January, that’s going to be reported monthly, not quarterly or every six months, so you can start water turn-offs every month,” Shuster said. “That would certainly make delinquents take notice a lot more quickly than they do now.”
Some of the long-standing debts are coming from residences that no longer are rented or used and councilors hope that garbage officials implement a better reporting system to keep track of violators and possible empty properties.
“We have a couple of cases where some reasonably well-known individuals are coming from out of town and putting garbage in one of our dumpsters,” Shuster said. “When we can prove who that is, that’s $100 a bag.”
With the new garbage ordinance, bags will not be picked up without a sticker.
Lawmakers are to revisit this issue at the January 10 council meeting.
Overall, Shuster said he is excited about the borough’s future.
“We’ve made some real headway in bringing Kittanning into the 21st century, and for that, the rest of us ought to be pleased because council has down everything it possibly can do to trim costs, but at the same time, maintain services and not lose any employees,” Shuster said.