Monessen’s general fund dips
MONESSEN – Financially strapped Monessen saw its general fund dip by $140,000 since this time last month as the Mon Valley city works to avoid being deemed a distressed municipality in Pennsylvania, its chairman of accounts and finance said Monday.
The city’s general fund stood Monday at $129,364 at a time when payroll still needed to be met and other bills were piling up, Councilwoman Lucille D’Alfonso said at Monday’s city council meeting. The general fund was $269,891 at the end of May after city employees were paid.
“You can see that things are a little bit tight right now,” D’Alfonso said while giving the city’s finance report.
Monessen in February entered into an early intervention program with the state Department of Community and Economic Development, using a consultant to guide the business office to avoid becoming financially distressed under Pennsylvania’s Act 47. The move came at a time when Monessen Mayor Lou Mavrakis estimated the Westmoreland County city’s debt at $13.5 million to be paid over the next 28 years and it ended 2015 with a $700,000 deficit.
“Things are getting progressively worse,” Mavrakis said Monday, adding the city also has a serious problem with the poor condition of its roads.
City solicitor Gary Matta, meanwhile, said $40 million to $50 million would not be enough money to repair all of the problems with Monessen’s sewer lines. He said that’s a problem faced by many former steel towns whose economies began to collapse when the industry did the same thing in the 1980s.
D’Alfonso said Monessen has $480,000 in tax bills that were delinquent and another $730,000 hasn’t been collected in garbage and other fees.
She said those uncollected monies “can make a big difference in our ability to continue to provide services.”
“The city is like someone on a fixed income. You have to stretch every dollar,” D’Alfonso said.
She said all utility bills were paid for the month of June.
And Monessen treasurer Gerald Saksun said additional real estate taxes were expected to be collected by the June 30 deadline.
But, Saksun said, the city was $419,000 short of the budgeted amount of revenues in this year’s spending plan as of May 31.