Kittanning Borough Council met on Saturday morning, December 22, to adopt their 2019 budget.
A previous attempt to adopt the budget failed when council could not get enough members to hold the meeting.
The 2019 budget was approved Saturday by Kim Chiesa, David Croyle, Scott Davis, Mike Johns, Joe Kiehlmeier, Chris Schiano, and Betsy Wilt. Vice-President and Finance Chairman Andy Peters was absent.
The budget was prepared by Councilwoman Wilt.
“I am happy that the budget is approved for 2019,” Wilt said at the conclusion of the five-minute meeting. “I am also very excited that we did not have to raise taxes for our citizens in Kittanning.”
Kittanning Councilwoman Betsy Wilt said she was pleased that Council adopted the 2019 budget.
Wilt said determining revenue in any given year is always speculation.
“The is not always a guarantee on the revenue. We are hoping that the actual income from real estate taxes will be higher than the previous year, which it should be. Hopefully it will balance out.”
Wilt increased real estate tax estimates from $758,000 to $774,000. Garbage collection will bring in $750,000. Earned income tax was projected to remain at $240,000 for 2019.
Wilt increased spending from $5,000 to $35,000 as a starting point to repairing alleys.
“It is hard to figure out where you are going to move money. One of the priorities is trying to figure out how to pave our alleys. I think our citizens would really like to see that. So we did move some money from Liquid Fuels to possibly pave some alleys.”
The State charges a tax on all liquid fuels (gasoline, diesel fuel, etc) and returns a portion of that money back to municipalities and the county for funding a range of projects to support construction, reconstruction, maintenance and repair of local roads, streets and bridges. Kittanning Borough receives more than $100,000 in Liquid Fuels allocation but has used it to fund the street department and pay off a $700,000 loan that was used in pave streets five years ago.
Wilt also included the purchase of a 2019 GMC one-ton dump truck that will be purchased at Walker Motors at a cost of $38,860. The purchased was approved at the November council meeting.
Wilt’s budget forecasts $2,743,849 in revenue, but anticipates spending $2,883,123. Wilt said some of the fund balance will be used to bring the general fund into balance.