The status of a proposed 2017 Luzerne County tax hike and new $5 vehicle registration fee is up in the air because a council majority on Tuesday postponed voting on the first round of budget-reduction amendments.
Council members must come up with $4.2 million in cuts or new revenue to avoid the 4-percent property tax increase. The budget also counts on $1.05 million from the vehicle fee to help fund the maintenance of county-owned roads and bridges.
Council Chairwoman Linda McClosky Houck placed budget amendment votes on Tuesday’s agenda because two colleagues had proposed packages – $2.087 million in cuts from Councilwoman Kathy Dobash, and $917,727 in reductions and $14,900 in additional revenue suggested by Councilman Harry Haas.
However, a majority supported Council Vice Chairman Tim McGinley’s motion to hold off on any budget amendment votes.
Councilman Eugene Kelleher said the delay will provide more time to review all options. McClosky Houck and Haas were the only council members who wanted to proceed with amendment votes Tuesday. Councilman Edward Brominski was absent.
The budget adoption deadline is Dec. 15. The council plans to pass a budget on Dec. 13, leaving only one more scheduled meeting, on Dec. 6, to sort through potential changes.
Several additional budget amendments have been proposed since the packages presented by Dobash and Haas, according to council emails:
• Brominski on Nov. 23 proposed replacing part-time attorneys with full-timers in the law, district attorney and public defender offices, maintaining the conversion would save $571,600.
• The next day, Dobash suggested a blanket 4-percent spending cut in every division, saying managers can decide “where to make the reductions.”
• On Nov. 25, Councilwoman Eileen Sorokas sent an email proposing the council return the budget to county Manager C. David Pedri and require him to reduce spending to eliminate the tax increase and vehicle fee.
“We should be cutting expenditures, not having a wish list budget,” Sorokas wrote, noting she is against the creation of 18 proposed new positions.
In addition to the vehicle fee and tax hike, the proposed 2017 budget permanently eliminates a homestead break for primary residences that was temporarily halted in 2015, freeing up $4.7 million for other expenses next year.
Operational Services Division Head Edmund O’Neill presented his proposed $5.88 million budget Tuesday night. It’s a $2.02 million decrease from 2016. But this year’s budget included $2.087 million for health insurance and retirement in the division – expenses that have been removed from department budgets and placed into lump-sum, countywide allocations in the proposed 2017 budget.
The division includes the engineer, road and bridge, emergency management, boiler plant, security, building and grounds, and planning/zoning departments, in addition to a portion of 911 expenses.
Revenue is projected at $2.7 million for the operational division in the proposed budget, an increase of $832,236 from 2016.
O’Neill said he reduced the security overtime budget from $30,000 this year to $20,000 next year, anticipating the proposed addition of two new part-time security officer positions would reduce overtime. The two new staffers would be paid $12,222 each. The security department spent $35,000 on overtime this year to date, he said.
Councilman Stephen A. Urban suggested reducing the council from 11 to five members, predicting the change would shorten evening meetings and lower courthouse security expenses.
During the 911 budget presentation, county 911 Executive Director Fred Rosencrans said he plans to use $90,000 from a savings reserve to create a small backup emergency dispatch center at the county’s emergency management building on Water Street in Wilkes-Barre.
The project is warranted to prevent emergency call service disruption if the 911 center in Hanover Township must be evacuated, he said.
