Tyrone Borough Council passed the 2006 budget at last night\u2019s meeting.
\nThe vote came a little less than two weeks after an extended discussion of the borough\u2019s budget. That session eventually saw council members pass a proposed budget that was made available for public inspection.
\nAt the Nov. 30 meeting, some council members indicated a tax increase might be needed. A discussion also ensued about capital items in the budget and other costs.
\nInitially, council members deadlocked on passing the proposed budget that showed a $102,000 deficit in its general fund. A motion was made to use capital reserves to cover the amount. Four members voted for the motion and four voted against.
\nAt the Nov. 30 meeting, council took a recess and then decided to remove a phone system and codification of the borough\u2019s ordinances from capital items.
\nAnother motion was made and seconded to pass the budget with the use of reserves to balance it. Council member Bill Latchford made the motion, but only after making it clear that council would have to seriously consider a tax increase during budget discussion next year. He asked if at least one council member that had voted yes to the previous motion would be willing to consider an increase next year. Among returning members, Virgie Werner said council would have to see where things were next year and make a decision based on that.
\nThat was good enough for Latchford and he moved the proposed budget be passed. The motion carried five to three with Latchford changing his vote from a \u201cno\u201d to \u201cyes.\u201d The three council members who voted \u201cno\u201d both times were Jennifer Bryan, Bill Fink and Mark Kosoglow.
\nDuring last night\u2019s meeting, all three once again voted \u201cno\u201d to passing the final budget using the capital reserves. The budget included the general fund, capital expenditure fund, the water fund, sewer fund and highway aid fund.
\nCouncil also passed an ordinance to set compensation for borough employees for 2006. In that vote, Latchford abstained since some of his family members are borough employees. The motion passed four to three with Bryan, Fink and Kosoglow maintaining their \u201cno\u201d stance.
\nCouncil also set fees and taxes for 2006. The vote was five to three on that motion, with Bryan, Fink and Kosoglow voting \u201cno\u201d.
\nAfter the meeting, Bryan said, \u201cI\u2019m not in favor of raising taxes either, any more that I believe the other two (Fink and Kosoglow) are, but I feel we have to do it.
\n\u201cEven though Bill (Latchford) voted yes, it was with the contention that we have to definitely look at it,\u201d said Bryan. \u201cWe have to raise taxes in order to balance the budget.\u201d
\nShe said she didn\u2019t think the borough could continue to use capital reserves to balance the budget.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just not feasible, next year it (the deficit) is going to be double,\u201d said Bryan. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t think that it will be, but it will be. I feel that we needed to raise our EIT (Earned Income Tax) or the EMS (Emergency Municipal Service) tax in order to recoup some.\u201d
\nShe said she didn\u2019t think there were enough things that could be cut from the budget to balance it at this point. She also cited insurance, specifically health insurance as being a major cost and something the borough does not \u201chave complete control over\u201d due to union contract negotiations.
\nThe budget includes the following cash and revenues and expenses projected as of Jan. 1, 2006:
\n\u2022 general fund, $2,861,000 with expenses of $2,861,000;
\n\u2022 capital expenditure fund, $11,200 with expenses of $11,200;
\n\u2022 water fund, $1,681,000 with expenses of $1,544,000;
\n\u2022 sewer fund, $2,553,000 with expenses of $2,282,000 and
\n\u2022 highway aid fund, $155,000 and expenses of $155,000.
\nTotal cash and revenues are listed at $7,261,200 with expenses of $6,853,200.
\nThe Borough listed overall cash and investments of $1,239,00 to be on hand as of Jan. 1, 2006. Borough manager Sharon Dannaway said the borough is using $102,000 from capital reserves under general government to balance the budget. The move is projected to leave the borough with a capital reserve of $1,137,000 at the end of 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tyrone Borough Council passed the 2006 budget at last night\u2019s meeting. The vote came a little less than two weeks after an extended discussion of the borough\u2019s budget. That session eventually saw council members pass a proposed budget that was made available for public inspection. At the Nov. 30 meeting, some council members indicated a […]<\/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-41986","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\/41986","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=41986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}