No action was taken last night when it came time for Tyrone Borough Council to vote on the town\u2019s 2007 budget.
\nInstead, any decision on the budget was tabled. The reason? The council had already voted down an earned income tax increase, which was part of the basis of balancing the budget.
\nEarlier in the meeting, borough solicitor Larry Clapper conducted a hearing about two ordinances to increase the earned income tax and to impose an EMS\/local services tax of $52 on people who work in Tyrone. There was no public comment during the hearing.
\nThe ordinances were presented to council and vice president Bill Latchford made a motion for the adoption of an increase in the EIT from .75 percent to 1.25 percent. Mayor James Kilmartin asked for a second on the motion and when no other council member seconded the motion, Kilmartin made the second.
\nA roll call vote was taken and the motion failed by a five to two vote. Kilmartin and Latchford voted in favor of the tax increase while council members Don Boytim, Jennifer Bryan, Bill Fink, Jim Grazier and Virgie Werner voted against it. Councilman Steve Hanzir was not present.
\nCouncil then voted on the local services tax ordinance. Latchford made the motion for adoption and Bryan seconded the motion. The ordinance passed by a four to three margin with Bryan, Kilmartin, Latchford and Werner voting in favor and Boytim, Fink and Grazier voting against it.
\nWhen it came time to vote on the budget, Solicitor Clapper said council would need to amend the budget to reflect money from its capital reserve to balance it in order to make up for the projected revenues from the proposed tax increase that council had rejected. Council had already planned to use some money ($51,200) from its capital reserve to balance the money. It also planned to raise certain fees it charges for services to increase revenue. Clapper suggested to council its other option to balance the budget would be layoffs or a cut in government spending.
\nLatchford asked council members \u201cwhat happened\u201d and asked council members who voted against the earned income tax increase to \u201cspeak up.\u201d
\nBryan said she wanted to look at line items in the budget.
\n\u201cI think we should have more control of the spending,\u201d said Bryan.
\n Latchford responded by saying, \u201cso you want to micromanage the borough.\u201d
\nBryan said she was \u201cnot totally\u201d against a tax increase. However, she indicated council should look at things such as money earmarked for the purchase of a new police car.
\nLatchford said he believed the council had come to a \u201ccompromise\u201d when it put together its proposed budget by using a combination of tax increases and using some capital reserve to balance the budget. In recent years, council had decided to use capital reserves and no tax increase to balance its annual budget.
\nSolicitor Clapper informed council if no final budget was adopted by Dec. 31 then the borough would continue to operate based on its 2006 budget on a pro-rated month to month basis. Such a move requires no action from council since it is stated in the borough\u2019s home rule charter. Council also tabled motions on 2007 compensation and other fees and taxes.
\nCouncilman Boytim said he had been approached by people regarding the tax increase who thought council had not made enough of an effort to cut line items in the budget.
\n\u201cWe represent the people of the community and if they ask us to try to go back and take another look at it then it\u2019s our responsibility to go back and take another look at it,\u201d said Boytim.
\nMayor Kilmartin wanted to know how many people had approached Boytim with their concerns. Boytim said he had been approached by 10 to 12 people in the last week or 10 days.
\n\u201cSo, 10 people out of 5,000 people make this decision,\u201d said Kilmartin.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re less than 10 people and we\u2019re making the decision,\u201d responded Boytim.
\nCouncil agreed to hold a public meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 20 at 6 p.m. in all likelihood to further discuss its 2007 budget.
\nAfter the meeting, Kilmartin called council\u2019s rejection of the EIT increase \u201ceye-opening\u201d and \u201ca bit frustrating\u201d since most council members had appeared to be in favor of the increase when the proposed budget was put together.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not opposed at all to go line by line and look at things, but that\u2019s why we have a borough manager,\u201d said Kilmartin.
\nHe noted the borough had not increased taxes in 10 years and said \u201cwe\u2019re bound to.\u201d
\nKilmartin said, \u201cWe are going to have to do something. We have to change some things. The decisions we have made over the last several years have put us into this place so we need to definitely do some changing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No action was taken last night when it came time for Tyrone Borough Council to vote on the town\u2019s 2007 budget. Instead, any decision on the budget was tabled. The reason? The council had already voted down an earned income tax increase, which was part of the basis of balancing the budget. Earlier in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}