Council looks for ways to avoid tax increase

By Jeanne Starmack

Sharon must cut services or raise taxes, council president says.

SHARON, Pa. — The city council continued to whittle away at the proposed $7.65 million 2009 budget in the second of two public hearings.

Council heard from department heads and the public Monday night as it tried to decide where to make cuts so that a tax increase, or at least the 10 percent proposed property tax increase, is not necessary.

The city, said council President Victor Heutsche, is in the unenviable position of either having to cut services or raise taxes.

“We can’t pay for everything, especially if you don’t want a tax increase,” he said at one point. “I won’t sit here and tell you there won’t be a tax increase.”

Mayor Bob Lucas said the only way to “stop the ship from sinking” is to stop the city’s population decline and turn it around. The population reached 25,000 in the late 1970s, he pointed out, and is now around 15,000.

At the hearing, council raised the idea of dropping out of the Mercer County Regional Planning Commission to save the $10,934 membership fee.

“What about paying as we go?” asked Heutsche.

Dan Gracenin, planning commission executive director, said, however, that wouldn’t be possible under the commission’s current bylaws. He said the rule would have to be changed for all 38 members.

Heutsche said he wonders how much the city actually needs the planning commission because “we don’t have much vacant land.”

Gracenin said the commission has provided many in-kind services to the city, and he said that the commission is helping Sharon and three other municipalities — Farrell, Hermitage and Wheatland — to develop a long-range priorities plan.

Police Chief Michael Menster told council that he isn’t comfortable with a proposal from Lucas on $46,000 the city gets in federal money for extra police patrols in Zone 5, a high-crime area near Farrell.

Lucas has proposed using the money to pay straight time and create 10-hour shifts on the weekends for the area instead of paying overtime to bring in an off-duty officer for the patrols, which is what the police department does now.

Menster said that with manpower down in the department, he often has only three officers per shift.

“Now if I took someone off a regular shift and put them on a special shift, it doesn’t work. I have a hole in the regular shift,” he said. “The time we need the officer out there is when we have a minimum of officers.”

The department, he said, has removed “a lot of guns and drugs from Zone 5” with the extra patrols.

Lucas has said that by paying the money out in straight time, it will stretch a lot further.

He said after the hearing that he wants to work on the issue with the chief. “I’m not positive how we’ll structure that,” he said about the shifts.

Council also debated whether it makes sense to lower the budget allocation for gas and oil from $15,000 to $9,000, now that vehicle gas prices have come down.

They took a suggestion from resident Carol Swartz that city employees pay more toward health care. She argued that the $845 a year they pay now is too low.

“Everybody needs to pay more for their hospitalization,” she said.

“I can’t disagree,” Lucas said.

Lucas also said it might be worth spending $7,000 to upgrade two salt trucks to make them more efficient because the cost of road salt has risen dramatically this year.

Council member Frank Connelly suggested rewarding neighbors somehow to take care of vacant lots, rather than pay someone to cut grass on the 250 lots the city cares for now.

Council might pass the budget at its next meeting, which is at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 23. The budget must be passed by Dec. 28, according to the city’s home-rule charter.

starmack@vindy.com