|
County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP)
Holds Summer Meeting
Posted 08-18-2000
The Westmoreland County Commissioners recently attended the summer meeting
of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) in Hershey.
The Association is the entity where we discuss issues affecting counties and
develop an agenda to lobby state government for changes that will allow us
to better serve our constituents.
The relationship between
counties and the Commonwealth is critical to so much of what we do. We
examine a broad range of issues including human services, the courts,
prisons, environmental and land use, personnel and legal, and taxation. In
addition, "break-out" sessions provide important information and exhibits by
vendors, and public agencies offer details of how those entities can help
us.
In my first term, I served as
Chairman of the Energy, Environment, and Land Use Committee and learned a
lot about the challenges that we face in balancing development with the
preservation of our natural resources. This year, I joined the Resolutions
Committee and was involved in developing twenty-five resolutions that were
approved at our general session. These resolutions cover many areas
affecting county governments, but perhaps the most important was the
resolution regarding tax reform.
Our primary goal is to reduce
county governments' reliance on property taxes. We have requested
legislative action that would give counties the opportunity to levy 1% of
personal income taxes as the primary alternative to property tax. Also,
we've asked for counties to be able to levy a 1% sales tax to be shared with
municipalities to address the special fiscal needs of entities that cannot
generate sufficient funds from their own tax base. We’re asking for these
new methods to be implemented without referendum, but they would require a
reduction or repeal of existing taxes to ensure counties would receive no
windfall in revenue.
It is imperative that the
Pennsylvania Legislature enacts tax reform soon. The feeble Homestead
legislation did nothing to relieve the burden of property taxes and the
County Commissioners’ Association believes that with larger tax bases than
school districts, we would be better able to reduce the taxpayers’ overall
property tax burden.
Some of the other resolutions
that we approved dealt with giving counties more flexibility for investment
of special-purpose county funds, changing to an accrual base accounting for
liquid fuel funds rather than being tied to PENNDOT’s cash basis accounting,
and redistributing unspent funds from the Department of Public Welfare among
the counties. The funds would be used for substance abuse treatment and
services to children, youth, and families. This plan would be accomplished
according to a policy acceptable to both the state and county agencies.
We also support changes to
statutes that would extend Medicare and Medicaid eligibility to county jail
prisoners and detainees. Currently, the coverage stops with incarceration,
and county taxpayers foot the bill. Other resolutions dealing with prisons
include clarifying state statutes to provide that inmates sentenced to two
or more years go to state prisons rather than some being sentenced to county
jails, providing consistency for parole jurisdictions for those state
prisoners sentenced to time in county jails, and having the State Board of
Probation and Parole return parole violators to state facilities rather than
holding them in county jails at county expense.
Other resolutions dealt with
workforce development, transportation, telecommunications, and the
implementation of a hotel tax in all counties than would be dedicated to the
promotion of tourism, historic preservation, and other needs related to the
ability to attract tourism.
While the County
Commissioners’ Association is realistic enough to know that we will not get
legislative relief for all our proposals immediately, we believe that it is
important for the Legislature to know what issues are important to county
governments. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, county governments are not
the masters of their own domain. We need a strong working relationship with
the Legislature and that hasn’t always been the case in the past. However,
the more clearly we articulate our agenda to not only Harrisburg, but to the
citizens of the Commonwealth, the more quickly changes can be implemented
that will allow county governments to better serve their constituents. |
