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The City of Williamsport adopted a 2024 budget with a half-mill of real estate tax increase.
The tax rate was set at 16.72 mills, which means $1,672 a year in tax for homeowners with property assessed at $100,000. That does not include county and school tax.
Councilwoman Liz Miele voted against the budget, stating that why the half-mill tax increase would not suffice given the city financial picture.
"We were already running a deficit-spending budget of $825,000 to the negative, running a $300,000 deficit at the end of this year and that is if we included a contribution into the emergency and reserve fund as income," said Miele, the chairwoman of the city finance committee. "We were running what looked like a $1.2 million deficit, but we were actually running a $300,000 deficit at the end of this year," she said, adding it was her first time on council that had occurred.
"The projected deficit at the end of 2024 is $825,000," she said. "We are still losing a lot of money and next year we need $2.7 million or more because of contractual increases," Miele said.
When she cited the figure, Tracey Rash, consultant with Government Finance Solutions, said it would be more because of the contractual obligations. The $3.5 million would translate to a little more than 4 mills, Miele said.
Miele said, there wasn't a mechanism in place for the city to make up a quarter of that amount and none of it added up to $3.5 million.
"With that in mind, I will be opposing the reduction of the tax increase and yes that makes me a jerk... but at some point we are going to have to raise taxes by a whole lot of money," she said.
After a discussion, council approved taking $400,000 from capital projects and putting it into the general fund and keeping the remaining funds of about $150,000 in capital projects for future purchases. The round of reductions was introduced by Councilman Vince Pulizzi who said he spoke with department heads and Rash before making what became an amended motion.
Bill Scott, city engineer, said a change-order of $19,000 was needed due to an increase in the number of relief wells for the levee project. That was approved on first reading and will be reviewed for second reading Jan. 4.
Council was notified the previous city administration's non-response to the Internal Revenue Service inquiries for fiscal and budgetary documentation led to a civil penalty of $180,000 remaining imposed and unable to be abated.
Because of this penalty, a finance and purchasing line item in the 2024 budget needed to be increased from $15,000 to $195,000.
ARPA-eligible funding such as firearms and ammunition for the police also is an expense to be finalized at the Jan. 4 meeting, and a line item for support equipment for fire went from $75,000 to zero on motions by Council President Adam Yoder.
A reorganization of the council is scheduled on Jan. 2 with the first full meeting of 2024 on Jan. 4.