Dec 19, 2014 2 min read

North Strabane Township supervisors approved a $12.4 million final budget for 2015 that includes a 1-mill tax reduction and plans to hire three police officers and one full-time firefighter.

“We had cut taxes the year before by a half-mill, so this is the second time in three years that we’ve cut taxes,” said township Manager Frank Siffrinn. The township has not raised taxes for 22 years.

As a result of the tax reduction, the owner of a property with an assessed value of $40,000 will pay $40 less in taxes next year. The nearly $1.2 million increase to the budget and the tax cut will be paid for with an estimated surplus of $1.7 million from 2014. Another $500,000 will be put into a newly created building account Siffrinn said is a “first down payment” toward eventually constructing a new municipal office complex.

The board of supervisors this week also decided not to hire a full-time parks and recreation director. The position was left vacant after former director Greg Sulc resigned in March. Instead, the board opted to enter a management agreement with YMCA, which will provide programming and services to the township at an annual cost of $28,125.

YMCA will send a staff member to work with the township at the start of the new year, and they plan to implement new programs that have never been offered in North Strabane, such as summer day camps, senior programming, sports clinics and wellness programs.

“We thought that was a plus,” Siffrinn said.

The board also hired Frank Caputo as a firefighter. He will replace Paul Shiring, who resigned in order to take a job with MarkWest. A proposal to amend a 2008 service agreement between North Strabane Municipal Authority and Canonsburg-Houston Joint Authority was tabled.