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2005 County Budget
Posted
12-13-2004
Westmoreland County's 2005
preliminary budget has been passed, and, frankly, no one is happy.
Increasing taxes certainly does not make you happy, and they certainly don't
make the commissioners happy. But because we are required by law to pass a
balanced budget (unlike the United States Congress that can keep adding to
the national debt), we could not pass a budget for 2005 without a millage
increase.
While no one likes to pay
more in taxes, it is important to understand the complexities of
Westmoreland County's nearly $300 million budget. Less than 25 percent of
the budget comes from county property taxes. We fund a large portion of the
general operations from property tax revenue and use it to plug in funding
gaps for reimbursable mandated services. Currently, the average property
owner in Westmoreland County pays $331 per year in county property taxes.
The proposed increase of four mills will increase that cost to $409 per
year. Broken down to a cost per day, the increase goes from 90 cents to
$1.11. These amounts are for the average assessed property; some people will
pay more, some less.
People may ask, "can't the
county balance the budget through cuts only?" The answer is not that simple.
We have been reducing employees and expenses for years. There are less
people working for county government today than there were 10 years ago. We
eliminated jobs through an early retirement program, and, last year, we laid
people off. Virtually all of those layoffs were positions under the direct
purview of the commissioners. We got little cooperation from other elected
officials. But, there simply are not enough jobs under the county's general
fund that we can eliminate to balance the budget. We must have sufficient
levels of employment in such operations as the county prison and our public
safety department. The courts must be able to move cases along in a timely
manner, and the levels of employment in support departments, like
information systems, have already been streamlined. Out of the 10
third-class counties in Pennsylvania, we have the third lowest number of
employees already.
You may ask, "how did the
county get in the situation we are in?" There is no single reason other than
that the costs of the services we provide continue to rise. Our employees,
like all other workers, want to earn more money. We froze management
salaries last year, but cannot continue to do so while the nine different
labor unions that serve county government receive annual raises. For seven
of those bargaining units, the commissioners do not even get to agree to the
raises they receive; an arbitrator awards those raises. The vendors we do
business with all expect to receive more compensation, not less. And though
we have instilled competition in everything from healthcare to natural gas,
costs have continued to escalate.
By law, we must have a fully
funded pension. Because of market performance, and the way our actuary
calculates our pension requirements, we have had to contribute $3.5 million
in 2003, $5 million in 2004, and now must contribute $6 million in 2005,
even though we have $230 million in the fund. Hopefully, if the market
improves, we will get out from under that burden in future years. Even the
county's general investment income has been lower in recent years because of
low interest rates.
Throughout the recent past,
the fastest growing part of county government has been the courts and the
criminal justice system. Because the public demands stricter laws and the
Pennsylvania legislature accommodates them, there has been a corresponding
increase in the cost of the courts. We have more court employees, district
attorneys, public defenders, probation officers, and corrections employees.
There are many more cases, and more people incarcerated. That phenomenon
does not come without an associated cost. When I was a child, the county
jail used to be right in the center of Greensburg and had no more than 100
inmates. Now, we have six times that number in a 12-year-old prison that
needs a million dollar fix to the electronic system that controls the
opening and closing of cells.
The whole court system was
not supposed to be the responsibility of county governments. In fact, the
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania made that ruling years ago after Allegheny
County sued the commonwealth. However, other than taking over the court
administrator's office, no further action was taken by Harrisburg to help
counties.
The issue of property tax
reform has essentially not been addressed by the legislature. For years, the
County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania has been asking for the
opportunity to shift away from property taxes but the legislature has stayed
focused on school property taxes since they are the largest portion of your
tax bill. Little has been done because school districts for the most part do
not have a large enough tax base to make any changes.
There are many factors that
go into the rising cost of county government. Without an occasional
adjustment in millage, tax revenues increase little because our tax base
grows less than a percent a year. County taxes were 14.99 mills in 1992.
Throughout most of the 1990s, special one-time funding sources (like
proceeds from the sale of the community college property that provided $18
million) were used to avoid millage increases. But they created an
impression of financial stability that did not fully address the rising
costs of county government. Taxes were raised to 16.99 mills in 2001 and
will likely go to 20.99 mills in 2005. We spent down reserves for many, many
years to avoid tax increases, and we will always look at ways of reducing
expenses. But until Harrisburg changes the scope of responsibility for
county government, we must have a balanced budget and continue to offer the
services we are required to provide.
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