HERMITAGE Officials: No rise in real-estate taxes

The city is getting a Handel's Ice Cream Store on East State Street.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- City commissioners continued a 13-year-old streak: no new real-estate taxes.
Not since 1990 have commissioners enacted a tax increase, and they kept the streak alive Wednesday by approving an $8.64 million general fund budget that keeps real-estate taxes at 5 mills.
Real estate isn't the city's major source of revenue. That would be the 2.25-percent municipal wage tax, of which 0.5 percent is handed over to the Hermitage School District.
The city's share of the wage tax will amount to $4.35 million in the new budget, while real-estate taxes account for just under $1.12 million.
The new budget reflects a $370,000 decrease in spending because of a smaller transfer of revenue into the city's capital improvement fund.
The general fund provides the money for the city's day-to-day operations, but the actual expense of maintaining the municipality is a lot higher.
City commissioners also approved a $3.90 million sewer fund budget for the municipal sanitary sewer system (funded by a separate sewer fee); a $606,500 capital reserve fund budget for specific equipment purchases in 2004; a $1.75 million capital improvement fund budget that sets money aside for equipment purchases; a $635,425 health-care fund budget; and a $1.64 million construction fund budget to pay for street, storm sewer and other public improvements.
Also on agenda
In other business, commissioners:
UApproved both a subdivision and a land development plan for a Handel's Ice Cream Store to be built in the parking lot of the Shenango Valley Mall along East State Street. The subdivision sets aside a lot of 32,539 square feet for the store and parking area, and the land development plan approves the location of a 1,544-square-foot building on that lot.
UHeard a complaint from Anthony Lascola of Bobwhite Drive about a water problem caused by the construction of a home on land adjacent to his house. Lascola said that a pipe installed to drain water away from the neighboring home dumps water onto his property, causing flooding problems.
City officials offered to remove the pipe but said that wouldn't stop the water flow. They would also need to dig a small ditch along the rear of Lascola's property to channel the runoff along a natural water course. Lascola doesn't want any digging done on his property and said he wants to take the issue before the city's board of appeals.