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Pa. delay affects county budget
This year, the county's general fund budget is $61.2 million, and, as is typical, when a bound copy of the budget first becomes available, it will contain a sizable deficit.
Little by little, the deficit is whittled down; the county's 21.4 mills in property taxes has not changed for the past five years.
Roger Metcalfe, finance director, said figures he usually would have had weeks ago were delayed by the 101-day state budget impasse, and some of the preliminary numbers he has received for the county's preliminary budget for human services could be changed as late as next week.
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Eighteen hearings on the 2010 county budget with department heads and elected officials are scheduled from 9:30 a.m. Monday on planning, liquid fuels, airport and parks through 3:30 p.m. Thursday, when Prothonotary Phyllis Ranko Matheny wraps up the process.
Although the hearings, convened in the seventh-floor conference room of the Courthouse Square office building, are open to the public, citizens rarely attend.
Officials often arrive with what could be termed a wish list, but in tough economic times, there's no extra money to spread around.
"It's going to be very tight," said Commissioner Diana Irey. "I know this board is going to do everything it can to avoid a tax increase. We are the lowest tax rate in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and we want to keep it that way." She called this year's budget "the toughest budget challenge I've had in 14 years."
Compounding the county's budget concerns this year is the expiration of the contracts for its two largest unions, Service Employees International Union locals 668 and 1199P.
Scott Fergus, Washington County director of operations, said negotiations will open Nov. 2, and additional sessions have been scheduled for Nov. 4 and 18.
They, too, were delayed due to the budget debacle, providing just a two-month window before the union contract expires Dec. 31.
When talks opened on the last contract in advance of the contract's 2005 expiration date, talks dragged on for more than a year.
Al Smith Jr., business agent for Local 668, said the lateness of the opening of talks doesn't preclude reaching a new contract before the expiration of the current pact.
"It doesn't really take that long to bargain a contract if both sides are serious," Smith said.
Representing Local 1199P, which includes workers at Washington County Health Center, will be Cheryl Long.
Another issue that's up in the air is whether the county will conduct a property reassessment next year.
Nearly 11 months ago, President Judge Debbie O'Dell Seneca ordered that the commissioners "initiate and pursue a program of countywide reassessment and to proceed diligently" within their current term of office, which ends in early January 2012.
Spurred mainly by a reassessment case that originated in Allegheny County, there are proposals to revamp state law on reassessment, but none has been voted into law.
Asked if a property-by-property examination needed for a reassessment will begin next year, Commission Chairman Larry Maggi said last week, "We have to make that decision. We have to budget to borrow the money.
"We're mandated. We have to have a budget, and we have to have a budget by Dec. 31. Unfortunately, we're not like the Legislature."
Must be nice : 10/22/2009
I work for the State, and I can say that if Mr. Maggi and the Commissioners actually bothered to fund anything instead of pushing it on the state and municipalities, maybe his complaints would be a bit more sincere. We get it- Maggi and the Commissioners don't like the Legislature- good for them. Now could they please focus on governing the County instead of acting like children?
