Pottsville City Council appears poised to raise real estate taxes 1.5 mills
in 2008, or about $49 per year for the average taxpayer, after Thursday’s first
reading of the $8,210,631 budget, which one councilman called “tight as can be.”
There seems to be no other way to cover a $98,000 increase in health insurance,
three new police vehicles, a new sport-utility vehicle for the fire chief and
general inflation aside from raising real estate taxes for the first time in
four years, according to city Administrator Thomas A. Palamar.
“It’s just like anywhere. If you look at natural growth, costs increase on
everything. I mean there’s health care costs, fuel ... Have your household
expenses increased at all since last year? It’s just unfortunate sometimes the
natural growth of your expenses outweighs the natural growth of the kind of
revenue you can pull in,” Palamar said.
“There’s nothing extraordinary that’s being done or being put into this budget.
And 99 percent of what is being seen in this budget is simply inflationary-type
costs. We’re not hiring additional people,” said Councilman Michael P. Halcovage.
If council gives final approval to the budget at a special meeting at 3 p.m.
Dec. 27, it will be the first time in four years council has increased real
estate taxes.
The current real estate tax is 12.87 mills. For every $1,000 of assessed value,
the property owner will pay $12.87. And the average taxpayer — with a property
with an assessed value of $27,566.34 — has a tax bill of $350.09, said City
Clerk Julie D. Rescorla.
If the tax is hiked to 14.37 mills, the average property owner will pay $14.37
for every $1,000 of assessed value and will have a tax bill of $399, Rescorla
said.
At the first reading of the budget Thursday night, council said there is no way
to further trim down department expenses without cutting services to the city’s
15,500 people.
“I’m very confident that this budget is as tight as any budget can be, given the
services that are provided. The only simple way around that would be to cut
services to people. And I don’t believe we have any unnecessary programs,”
Halcovage said.
A concerned citizen, Scott R. Thomas, encouraged council to re-examine the
budget and continue looking for ways to make cutbacks.
“Simply reviewing the budget will show you we’re squeezing every penny that can
be squeezed,” Halcovage said.
“My heart goes out to the senior citizens,” said Thomas, the only citizen to
attend Thursday’s meeting.
“My heart goes out to the senior citizens and everybody else,” said Halcovage.
“There’s people who are going to have a difficult time paying for heating oil
this year. And they’re going to have a difficult time paying for their
prescriptions and everything like that. Our problem is that people still want
the services. And until people come to us and tell us they don’t want the
services they’re receiving, the only thing we can do is try to pinch every
penny.”
The police have a fleet of eight cruisers and two SUVs and the fire department
has two SUVs. City Council must replace four of those vehicles in 2008, Palamar
said.
And while it may seem like an extraneous expense, Palamar said it’s not.
“You can cut back and really tighten your belt in a lot of areas. But what if we
say, ‘Forget it. We’re not going to replace any of the vehicles,’ well then you
know what, you’re going to end up spending more money on repairs than you are on
leasing a vehicle,” Palamar said.
The city keeps an inventory of its vehicles.
“As soon as a vehicle comes on it, it has an expected life. And normally when we
get rid of cars, we’ll take the worst three and get rid of those, or we’ll keep
recycling them until we can’t fix them anymore,” Palamar said.
The city maintains and does repair work on its vehicles. And Palamar said, “when
we start sending them out, they begin to cost a lot of money.”
Council is planing to purchase three new police cruisers through a lease-to-own
program.
In turn, the city will either auction off three aging police cruisers purchased
either in 1999 or 2000, or allow other city departments to use them, Palamar
said.
“Right now they’re all on the road because we have to use them. But they are
just costing a lot of money to keep on the road. And with some of them, it just
becomes a safety factor because you can’t fix them anymore,” Palamar said.
Police Capt. Ronald J. Moser referred all questions about police vehicles to
police Sgt. Joseph Clarkson, who could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The city is also planning to purchase a new SUV for the fire department.
Fire Chief Todd March said Wednesday the city SUV he drives is four years old,
while the SUV driven by the assistant chiefs is eight years old.
March asked council to purchase his department a new SUV. He said he’ll drive
that and give the vehicle he’s currently using to the assistant chiefs.
“Cars get old. They don’t get a lot of miles on them, but they’re hard miles.
It’s all in-town driving, you’re stop-and-go all the time. You’re not out on the
highway. And you need a dependable vehicle,” March said.