SHARPSVILLE, PA. Tax, water raises OK'd in budgets

A man who moved back to the borough a year ago said taxes may drive him out.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARPSVILLE, Pa. -- A reduction in staff, an increase in taxes and higher water rates are all part of the 2004 borough budget.
Borough council approved a $1,104,458 general fund budget and a $639,000 water plant budget Wednesday. Council also announced that a part-time secretary had been furloughed and a vacancy in the street department and another in the police department won't be filled next year to control spending.
Despite those cuts, property taxes will increase by 3 mills to a total of 20.7, and water rates will rise by 3 percent.
The average residential taxpayer pays about $19 for each mill of taxes and will see a property tax bill about $57 higher next year. One mill generates about $25,000.
The average residential water bill now is $23 a month; a 3 percent increase will raise that by about 70 cents.
Objections
Passage of the budget didn't come without objections from a council member and two people in the audience.
Councilman Gary Grandy was the sole vote against the budgets, saying he opposed the water rate charge. He said the water account could have survived one more year without an increase. He also said the borough hasn't decided if it will keep its water plant, replace it or sell it to a private water company.
"Property taxes are my biggest gripe," Robert Johnston of South 10th Street told council before the budget vote.
"I don't have a bottomless pocket, people," he said, urging council to do anything it could to control taxes.
Mike Shemancik of Oak Street said he just moved back to Sharpsville a year ago and is considering moving away again because of the tax bills.
He asked council if it had considered administrative staff cuts and asked what had happened to a proposal to merge police departments with neighboring Hermitage.
Council President Jack Cardwell replied that one part-time secretary was furloughed, and Councilman Thomas Lally pointed out that the savings expected from a joint police department with Hermitage weren't there.
The plan would likely have cost Sharpsville more in four or five years than the borough is paying now for its own department, Lally said.
Cardwell said council has discussed the possibility of becoming a home-rule community, which would allow it to raise its wage tax beyond the 1 percent limit.
That would allow some of the tax burden to be shifted to the wages of working people rather than continue to rely on higher property taxes, which hurt people on fixed incomes, he said.
Lally said the borough has reached the point where it will soon have to make some hard choices. The next option is to cut staff, but that will also mean a reduction in services, he warned.
Borough council has tapped about $125,000 from its capital reserve fund (money set aside for equipment purchases) in each of the past three budgets to balance those spending plans but was able to avoid such a large dip into the fund for 2004, taking only $21,000 from that account.
General fund spending will drop by about $60,000 next year because of the staff cuts.