Nov 1, 2022 3 min read

Washington Council is expected to vote on motions regarding its preliminary budget Thursday, and work continues to have a balanced spending plan for 2023 with the hope of no tax increase.

Councilman Ken Westcott, chairman of the accounts and finance department, said what started out as a significant deficit has been reduced.

“It was pretty hefty,” he said after Monday’s agenda meeting. “We’ve gotten it down under $100,000. We feel pretty comfortable with the revenues coming in over the next month or so and we were able to use some of the monies we received from the federal government, I feel pretty confident when we read the final budget, we’ll have a balanced budget and some carryover and hopefully no tax increase. That’s the goal.”

Another motion expected to be on Thursday’s agenda is a payment of $14,351 to Motorola Solutions for the first year of a five-year contract for 18 body-worn cameras, cloud-based storage of video, and camera replacement and maintenance.

The city’s police department used four such cameras on a trial basis in August and Chief Daniel Rush said the trial was a success. He also said at a past meeting that the price for the subsequent four years of the contract would be about $13,000 a year.

Rush told council Monday that the department should have the cameras in the first quarter of 2023.

The chief also told council the department is working with the code enforcement department to “clean up properties on Locust Avenue that like to pour piles of garbage on the sidewalk weeks in advance of garbage pick-up and then it scatters everywhere.”

“We’re trying to do some quality-of-life improvements with code enforcement,” Rush said.

Fire Chief Chris Richer said the department is partnering with AAA for a bicycle helmet program, and the city received 150 bicycle helmets from AAA.

“In the spring, we’ll get those helmets out on the street,” Richer said, adding that AAA is expecting to deliver about 100 more helmets. “Kids will be a little bit safer next summer.”

Richer said the department responded to an accident in which a child riding a bicycle was flown to a Pittsburgh hospital, which spurred participation in the program. Richer did say the child was fine.

Also, the department wrapped up a busy Fire Prevention Month.

“We did 48 prevention presentations in the schools, day cares and at the station itself,” Richer said. “It was very successful with a large of great information out there.”