GREENVILLE, PA. Plan recommends ways to help improve borough

The plan recommends cutting the number of employees through attrition.
By LAURI GALENTINE
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
GREENVILLE, Pa. -- Among the long list of recommendations to help Greenville borough recover from financial woes are increased tax collection efforts, reduction in staff and an increased wage tax.
The plan, put together by a coordinator hired by the Pennsylvania Center for Local Government, working in conjunction with local officials, also includes provisions for paying debts, developing sound budget practices and economic strategies, and makes recommendations for changes in certain policies and practices.
It features a list of items that must be complied with to receive state money to help bail the borough out of its deficit situation and a list of recommendations to aid the recovery.
The plan calls for council members to become more active in monitoring collections of money owed to the borough. It also calls for council to seek proposals for delinquent real estate tax collections, to increase interest and penalties -- to the maximum allowed by law -- on delinquent taxes and to submit tax-delinquent properties for sheriff's sale.
Borough officials are required to petition the court for an increase in the earned income, or wage tax, to 1.7 percent for residents and 1.5 percent for nonresidents and establish a more comprehensive tax auditing and verification program.
Other requirements
The plan tells officials to revise the occupancy ordinance to require landlords to supply information on all their current renters, and each time there is a change, to ensure that renters are registered for tax purposes. They are also to require employers to submit W-2 information or quarterly statements to verify the total number of employees.
The directive for reducing personnel doesn't mean putting people out of work, but instead recommends not replacing those who retire or resign.
The plan says that council shall "initiate discussions with adjacent municipalities to consider the long term recommendation of boundary changes," and "undertake a feasibility study" of the recommended changes, but it doesn't outline exactly what those changes should be.
Another directive on the list is to close the parking revenue account and deposit those funds into the general account, and to find ways to increase the parking revenues and enforce the parking laws.
This recovery plan comes on the heals of Greenville's designation as a distressed community under the state's Act 47.
Council sought the designation at the beginning of this year after discovering that the town was facing a $1.62 million deficit.
They now must follow the recommendations included in the plan to be eligible to receive grants and no-interest loans from the state to help with the financial recovery of the borough.