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Budget talks ongoing: Reassessment, library highlighted

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette Around 18 tax payers showed up for the third of the Lycoming County commissioners' Budget meetings at the Jersey Shore Library Wednesday night.

JERSEY SHORE — Lycoming County’s projected deficit for 2019 remains about $9.5 million, as presented at the final hearing for the preliminary 2019 budget Wednesday evening in Jersey Shore.

Taking into account the $9 million bond to be taken out before the end of this year, $6.4 million of which will be used for capital projects next year, the commissioners consider the actual deficit for 2019 to be about $3.1 million.

Another portion of that deficit could be made up with the $2.76 million proposed contingency, which is broken out into $1.4 million for a health care emergency, about $360,000 “just-in-case” money and $1 million to begin the process of a countywide reassessment.

“We are anticipating doing (a reassessment),” said Commissioner Jack McKernan. “There are not a lot of vendors out there. It’s our understanding, even if we signed up tomorrow, they probably couldn’t get a reassessment done until 2021 or 2022 where it would be on the taxroll.”

The vendor the county has talked reassessment with, Tyler Technologies, proposed a total cost of about $3 million, McKernan said.

However, that could be lowered because the county already is implementing a $675,000 software upgrade in its assessment office, he added.

“We’re going to get nearly three-quarters of a million spent on the front end,” he said, adding the upgrade hopefully will be complete in the first quarter of 2019.

Melanie McLane, owner of Jackson Real Estate and a Porter Township resident, agreed that reassessment needs to happen sooner than later.

“The further you go without a reassessment, the more things get out of whack,” she said. “It’s something you have to do at some point in time to make it fair to taxpayers.”

While Commissioner Tony Mussare also agrees it needs to happen, he is wary, he said.

“I am not as optimistic as my colleagues are about a reassessment right now,” Mussare said. “Is it needed? Absolutely. But there’s so much more that’s needed than this.”

Traditionally, during a reassessment, one-third of property values go up, one-third go down and one-third remain the same, he said.

“We get blamed for that,” he said. “The ones that go up say, ‘Why’d you raise my taxes?’ The ones that stay the same, ‘Why did you spend the money?’ and the ones that go down, ‘Thanks, but why’d you do that?’ “

Rather than relying solely on property tax for income, counties in other states are able to implement sales tax, which means “everybody pays,” Mussare added.

The heart of the matter, however, seems to rest on the lowering values of properties in the county, particularly commercial, McKernan said.

“If we want to avoid tax increases, we’ve got to get the value of property in our county to go up,” he said.

In another matter, about half of the two-dozen attendees at the meeting were affiliated with the county library system in addition to being taxpayers. They struck up a conversation on funding for the library and why they feel it’s important.

The county’s library system, which has received about $1.2 million in funding from the county for the past two years, is seeking a $61,000 increase. The total funds are split between the six libraries in the system, which has about 60 employees, said Commissioner Rick Mirabito, who also sits on the library board.

The preliminary budget reflects an $18,000 increase for the system.

Barbara McGary, executive director of the James V. Brown Library, told the crowd that many seem to think libraries primarily are funded by the state. However, Pennsylvania only allocates $56 million in its budget for more than 600 libraries statewide.

“We have not received an increase in state funding since 2009,” McGary said. “I think it’s a really essential service. It’s an essential human right to have a library.”

The commissioners intend to vote on a finalized budget at their meeting on Dec. 13, McKernan said.

Any changes made before the final vote will be announced during the meeting. A copy of the budget is available for review at www.lyco.org.

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