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We have a budget
As expected, at its regular business meeting last night borough council approved for public comment, and for final adoption December 20, the 2008 budget approved by finance committee last Thursday.
It posts a 14.87% overall property tax rate increase; a 3.5 percent rise in water and sewer rates; and a trash fee of $69 per month, payable quarterly.
Those rates have yielded a base budget for “2007 services at 2008 prices,” as borough manager Anthony DiGirolomo put it, plus these items, added by council: a new drug enforcement officer and an additional patrolman in the police department, and increased hours in a rental inspector’s position in the code enforcement department, which moves from three-quarter time to full time.
The hotly-debated position of borough purchasing agent remains. So does the borough’s third and last payment under the terms of its 2006 professional services contract with the Main Street-Community Development Corporation.
But about the latter, there was a hitch….
HEAD = Threat to CDC contract turned back
Late, indeed. At the very end of the meeting, finance committee chair and former CDC liaison Rich Kirkner made a lengthy motion to give the CDC 90 days to renegotiate the contract or face its termination.
Kirkner said that the CDC’s contractual role in Streetscapes is now at an end, that the contract’s other terms are “vague.” He viewed with some alarm the borough manager’s report that the CDC director had met with him only once during 2007. “This would force communications,” Kirkner said.
“While I understand what concerns you,” said Henry Wagner (D-Middle), Council should not “take this up at 10:00, in the eleventh hour with so many outgoing [council] members, without the CDC having input. We can direct the CDC. We’re their employers, and they’ve said the understand that. [The motion] is unhealthy for our relationship [to the CDC].”
After extended, sometimes heated debate, the motion was defeated 2-6, with Kirkner and Tish Jones (D-East) the motion’s lone supporters.
Posted by
Skip Lawrence
It posts a 14.87% overall property tax rate increase; a 3.5 percent rise in water and sewer rates; and a trash fee of $69 per month, payable quarterly.
Those rates have yielded a base budget for “2007 services at 2008 prices,” as borough manager Anthony DiGirolomo put it, plus these items, added by council: a new drug enforcement officer and an additional patrolman in the police department, and increased hours in a rental inspector’s position in the code enforcement department, which moves from three-quarter time to full time.
The hotly-debated position of borough purchasing agent remains. So does the borough’s third and last payment under the terms of its 2006 professional services contract with the Main Street-Community Development Corporation.
But about the latter, there was a hitch….
HEAD = Threat to CDC contract turned back
Late, indeed. At the very end of the meeting, finance committee chair and former CDC liaison Rich Kirkner made a lengthy motion to give the CDC 90 days to renegotiate the contract or face its termination.
Kirkner said that the CDC’s contractual role in Streetscapes is now at an end, that the contract’s other terms are “vague.” He viewed with some alarm the borough manager’s report that the CDC director had met with him only once during 2007. “This would force communications,” Kirkner said.
“While I understand what concerns you,” said Henry Wagner (D-Middle), Council should not “take this up at 10:00, in the eleventh hour with so many outgoing [council] members, without the CDC having input. We can direct the CDC. We’re their employers, and they’ve said the understand that. [The motion] is unhealthy for our relationship [to the CDC].”
After extended, sometimes heated debate, the motion was defeated 2-6, with Kirkner and Tish Jones (D-East) the motion’s lone supporters.
Posted by
Skip Lawrence
posted by The Phoenix Files at
8:45 AM
5 Comments:
Can't we just say:
1. We lost the CDC invoice.
2. Our computer files on that were corrupted.
3. Sorry, we don't do contracts until a year after we should. But don't worry you'll get a signing bonus if you wait another year. Just as we did with the TRASHME 'negotiations'.
Skip Trash fee is per quarter, not month. Otherwise the new landfill would be on hall street.
Also, i thought the sewer was decreasing...what happened there?
How can the Landscapes Project be finished, when the rest of the 200 block of Bridge Street, and all of the 300 block of Bridge Street, need work? It's bad enough that Kirkner tries to dictate to other council members to keep quiet on some issues, and then try to surprise everyone at the end of this meeting. It is this type of actions that makes the entire community have little faith in this council. It is also easy for them to pass a budget of this nature, knowing that they have their council pay to alleviate the increase, while older people who are scrimping for every penny they have, need to stretch things out even further.
To December 13, 2007 6:57 AM - you're wrong. Council members get no pay, so there is nothing to "alleviate" the increase. Besides, who's gonna argue that we needed to boost the police department back to 2005 levels?? This council is far from perfect, but let's be realistic here. Services cost money...and costs have gone up.
Maybe the landlords renting out their converted houses as apartments should be more selective and we wouldn't have so much riff raff to Police.
Once again greed is costing everyone.
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