Politics & Government

Proposed Point Boro Budget Calls for Four Police Layoffs and Three Police Demotions

Proposed budget may call for $48 annual tax increase, but is going to be revised to possibly avert layoffs and demotions

A budget that would cost owners of average borough homes an increase of about $48 in taxes annually and that would lay off four police officers and demote three others was reluctantly proposed by the Borough Council on Thursday night.

The proposed budget, which will likely be revised before adoption, calls for 14 furlough days for all municipal employees except police officers.

Some of those furlough days, including one on Friday, have already been taken.

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The total of 14 is less than half of the original projection of 33 and the recently-revised projection of 30.

The budget calls for about $12.3 million to be raised through taxation and an annual tax increase of about 1.25 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

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That would be an annual increase of about $48 on a home with an average borough assessment of $383,000, said Councilman Chris Leitner, finance committee chairman, after the meeting.

The budget will be the subject of a public hearing and adoption next month, with the exact date still to be determined.

At first the budget vote tied along partisan lines. It was only after Democrats agreed to cut about $65,000 allocated toward a down payment on a potential purchase of garbage trucks and cans that the budget passed, with only Councilman Robert Sabosik voting no.

Democrats emphasized that they would only ask council to approve such a purchase if a cost analysis ultimately shows that in-house trash and recycling collection is cheaper than the current practice of using private haulers.

Sabosik said, in an interview after the meeting, "I'm against in-house collection for strong, economic reasons. But if I'm proven wrong when the numbers come in, I'll vote for it."

While there was a lot of disagreement, along party lines, on whether the budget should set aside money to possibly start an in-house trash collection service next year, the mayor and council agreed that no one was happy with the proposed budget overall and that they hoped to revise it significantly by the time it's adopted.

"I am absolutely against laying off and demoting police officers," said Councilwoman Toni DePaola after the meeting. "We have to really roll up our sleeves and work on this budget so that we don't have to do that."

The council felt pressured to introduce a budget on Thursday night to meet a state-mandated deadline to introduce this week.

The state had already extended the deadline and could have fined individual council members if this deadline had been missed.

Just before the first vote for budget introduction, Councilman John McHugh Jr. told the audience, that the council members worked well together crafting a difficult budget and put political differences aside.

"We left partisanship at the door," he said.

Only minutes after that, the three Democrats voted to introduce the budget and the three Republicans voted against it.

Democratic Mayor William Schroeder declined to break the tie. In the borough council form of government, the mayor only votes when there is a tie.

"This is council's budget, they have to decide what they want," Schroeder said.

After the meeting, when asked why he didn't break the tie, he said, "It's council's budget and they should understand it's their job to do a balanced budget they all agree with."

Schroeder accused Republicans of "playing politics." Republicans denied that saying they are simply not leaning towards in-house trash collection and don't want to set aside money towards that.

The tie vote followed the three Republicans saying they did not want the budget to include money set aside to possibly start an in-house trash and recycling collection service next year.

Councilman Mitch Remig said he did not feel comfortable setting aside money that might be used to hire additional public works employees to collect trash.

"I'm not OK with bringing trash collection in-house," Remig said. "We're getting ready to furlough employees and now we're going to hire more to pick up trash? That just doesn't sit well with me.

"The public went crazy when we bonded for a new $1 million fire truck," said Remig, who is a member of the local volunteer fire department. "How are they going to feel about us buying trucks and cans and hiring more people?"

McHugh said, "We're only going to go in-house if it's the cheapest alternative. But I don't want us to take out the possibility. If it's in the budget, then private haulers we get bids from know we might bring it in-house. That's the biggest lever we have in negotiations with private companies."

Schroeder told council, "I've not heard one creative word from anybody on how to save money. This is an idea. I'm not saying I'm for it, I'm not saying I'm against it. But this money would be in the budget in case we decide to go in-house. We need to do the research to see if it's the best thing."

Schroeder said he favored setting aside the money in the budget in case council ultimately decides to bring trash collection in-house.

"Why would you want to take the possibility away?" he asked. "We're spending $736,000 on trash pickup every year and $140,000 on recycling. If we go in-house, we could possibly save $500,000."

"We're not taking the possibility away," said Sabosik. "We had $156,000 in the capital improvement fund. That's money that could be used as a down payment on trucks. But now we've put in another $130,000, which comes to $286,000. We don't need that much in the budget."

Sabosik said after the meeting that if council later opts for in-house service, it can pass emergency appropriations to fund it.

During the meeting, DePaola said, "We have no studies done on how much this is going to cost to buy trucks, to add staff. We don't know how many employees we would need. Do we need a mechanic? We just don't have the information we need to decide if this is what's best."

After the tie vote, Leitner made a motion for council to go into closed session, without explaining why the discussion could not continue in front of residents, many of whom had come because they had concerns about the budget's impact on the Recreation's Department's ability to sufficiently staff its preschool while complying with furlough mandates.

After a short break, the mayor and council walked into a separate room, closed the door and screaming could be heard through the walls for the first few minutes.

After about 20 minutes, the mayor and council came out and had another budget vote. This time Sabosik was the only no vote.

After the meeting, Leitner said that in closed session the Democrats agreed to cut $65,000 from the budget that might have been towards a down payment on trash trucks and cans if the borough ultimately decides to switch to in-house collection.

He said he wanted the meeting to continue in closed session because they had to discuss how they were going to use the potential for in-house trash pickup in negotiations with private haulers.

He said he also made the motion for closed session because "we thought we were going back to square one to talk about furloughs and negotiations again. We weren't in there long because after we had some discussion, there was nothing left to discuss in closed session."

DePaola said after the meeting that the closed session was also used to direct Borough Administrator David Maffei to draft a civil service plan to address potential layoffs and demotions.

DePaola said in an interview after the meeting that she changed her vote because Democrats agreed to cut those funds.

"I felt we had to move the budget forward," she said.

Schroeder said after the meeting that the borough is about to start advertising bid specifications for a 60-day period for private trash haulers to see if they can get a cheaper rate than the one they have now.

In separate interviews after the meeting, DePaola and Sabosik said that if the final analysis proves that in-house is the cheaper option, they will vote for it.

The borough would need to buy at least a few trash trucks and about 8,100 trash cans, or enough for all households, to establish an in-house trash collection service, said Leitner after the meeting.

Regarding potential police layoffs, Leitner said after the meeting that he hopes police will make other concessions, such as giving up a two percent raise that's coming up, so that layoffs and demotions can be averted.

Before taking the first vote on introducing the budget, council voted on borrowing $354,000 from school tax revenue.

Sabosik was the lone no vote against the borrowing.

AJ Sabine, one of the borough auditors, said that borrowing the money would plug an operating deficit of $350,000, so the borough does not have to raise it through taxes in this budget.

In response to parents' concerns about having to pay for Recreation Center preschool tuition before knowing how many days it would be closed due to furloughs, Leitner said Recreation Department Director Karen Haycook "has agreed to extend the payment deadlines for parents paying preschool tuition for what she feels is a reasonable period of time."

In other business, council introduced an ordinance to create water and sewer surcharges. In most households, that would mean a $34 surcharge for a water account and a $34 surcharge for a sewer account, totalling $68.

Water and sewer customers with more than one account for each, or customers who are served by well water and not connected to the municipal water system, would pay varying amounts.

The surcharges are to help close a deficit, Schroeder said.

DePaola asked if the water and sewer bills will include a note explaining the surcharge to residents. Maffei said that would be a good idea.


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