Politics & Government

Borough Council Says Maximum 30 Furlough Days for Employees

But borough trying to plan budget so fewer than 30 are used

Point Borough has discovered that it cannot impose more than 30 furlough days on its employees without the loss of pay affecting their pensions.

"We're trying to see if we can reduce that amount so we're not using the maximum number of furlough days," said Councilwoman Toni DePaola at Tuesday's budget workshop meeting.

DePaola made the comment in response to a question from a mother of a child registered to attend the Recreation Center's preschool in September.

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A number of preschool parents have come to the last several meetings to oppose the proposed furlough days that, as the plan stands now, would mean children have no school on Fridays due to furloughs of four employees at the Recreation Center.

Faced with a shortfall of about $2.6 million, Mayor William Schroeder and council members have been planning to impose 33 furlough days on all municipal employees except police.

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State law prohibits towns from furloughing police.

However, it turns out they can use a maximum of 30 between now and the end of this year.

Most of Tuesday's meeting consisted of an executive session, for one hour and 25 minutes, to discuss ongoing contract negotiations with local unions and also regarding a proposed salary increase for Police Chief Larry Williams.

After the executive session, officials announced that the meeting advertised for Wednesday night is cancelled, but the council will still meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.

After the meeting, council members said they plan to introduce a budget on Thursday, adding they could not yet discuss any details due to ongoing contract negotiations and the budget not being completed yet.

Council members are still not saying whether the proposed budget will call for borrowing from deferred school tax revenue.

The borough would be able to do that because it collects taxes for the municipality, school district and county.

It collects the taxes for the school district six months in advance and, if borrowing from those funds, known as "deferred school taxes," the borough must pay the money back six months later so the schools can function.

"We are legally obligated to pay back 100 percent of the money to the schools in six months," DePaola said.

Towns are allowed to borrow a maximum of half of the school tax levy that they have collected by the time they adopt their new budgets.

That means the borough could borrow a maximum of $7 to $8 million from the current school tax levy of $29 million, said Councilman Mitch Remig after the meeting.

However, he also said he does not foresee the borough borrowing the maximum, even if it chooses to borrow anything from the school taxes.

Borrowing from deferred school taxes came under fire last year from the school district and some residents, despite that, historically, the borough has borrowed in such a way in the past.

After last week's budget workshop, Schroeder said that when he was mayor, the first time, in the 1990s, the borough borrowed from deferred school taxes with no public backlash.


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