Yesterday afternoon, Judge Wettick amended the March 20, 2012 court order at 1:30 PM, extending the deadline for budgets to be approved by all taxing bodies from December 31, 2012 to January 31, 2013. Amended Court Order
Some neighboring communities have chosen to approve their budgets next month, instead of this week. This is good news for our commissioners, since they would have been forced to meet December 24, 2012, if there were any questions on tonight's budget.
Update December 11, 2012 PM 2:15 PM The County just uploaded the amended court order. An article ran in the Trib this morning quoting our manager, Steve Feller. http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/3110279-74/millage-appeals-county#axzz2EiCORF6G
25 comments:
i sent a link to this post to our commissioners and received this clarification from Dave Brumfield.
"Just to clarify the Court's order does not mean we do not have to approve our budget this year. We do not need to set our exact millage rate, but the budget is also the authorization for the staff to spend money. Were we to hold off on the budget we would be shutting down our government services as we would not be paying payroll, utilities and other necessary expenditures.
Dave"
This Lebo Alert pretty much says it all.
"Final public hearing and vote on 2013 municipal budget is tonight at 8 p.m. in the Commission Chamber."
Spoiler alert: There are enough votes for it to pass.
Elaine
Well, you can't crticize Brumfield for at least being honest here when he says: "We do not need to set our exact millage rate, but the budget is also the authorization for the staff to spend money."
You gotta wonder though about a guy that authorizes spending money when he has no idea of how he's going to get it!
I don't know how Judge Wettick could have made it any clearer that all taxing bodies have a one-month reprieve to adopt 2013 budgets. I would think ML would want to have the latest information possible before approving a new spending plan.
We deserve better---from both the commission and the school district, which is racking up change orders like crazy.
ML is 100 years old---does anybody really think it is going to shut down if a budget isn't approved by Dec. 31?
Just rad the link in the update.
Feller says it's wise to wait. Brumfield replied if they didn't they'd have to shit down Lebo govt services.
Does everyone now understand why this guy shouldn't be commission president!
Butler Area SD is arming school police and they will use them if someone intends to harm children. Motion passed 8-1 by school board. (Reported on KDKA at 6:00)
Arming school police? Awesome. I hope parents and teachers all apply for concealed carry permits. It's for the children.
Motion just passed 4 to 1 to approve the Manager's Recommended Budget. So folks, our real estate taxes are going up 4.8 %. In two years, if you consider the stormwater fee in addition to the increase in taxes, our taxes have gone up 20%.
Elaine
Of much concern is that over the last 10 years, the growth of our Municipal Real Estate Revenue has far outpaced the growth of our Municipal Earned Income Tax Revenue.
The latter being one measure reflecting the Community's ability to pay, and the former being one measure reflecting the Municipality's ability to spend.
County property taxes went up 21% this year, municipal
property taxes, including the stormwater fee, have gone up 20% in two years, and we don't know how the reassessment will influence our property taxes yet. But we have been assured that the school district has a limit on how much tax it can collect in the first year of a reassessment. Does anyone know what the limit is on the school district in the second year of reassessment?
Remember the Act 1 limit applies to millage only, not assessment increases.
Then one would be correct in saying the community is literally going to the dogs.
What is really wonderful about these exchanges is that you all have heightened community interest and awareness in community local issues.
No matter what our political perspectives you all have to admit that the exchanges on many issues have heightened community interest tremendously.
Merry Christmas,
Did you hear about the Total Cost of 4.2% on another school district labor contract? The school board wanted the public to think the cost was 2.89% and when a board member stated the Total,Cost of the contract was 4.2% per year over five years including benefits Pooch tried to lie her way out of being caught lying by the numbers and even tried to get Jan Klein to help her with her lie.
The Act 1 limits for the last three years have been 1.4%, 1.7%, and 1.7% for an average of 1.6% per year over three years. How do we pay the cost of a 4.2% contract on 1.6% millage increases without layoffs?
This lie raises the question of the Total Cost of the 4.15% teacher contract not being a lie too.
Wow! One meeting and Pooch is telling lies. How many times did she lie about the high school building cost and the need to get rid of building C?
Once a liar always a liar Pooch!
Then I guess she really did learn well from JoPo.
As if Josephine isn't pulling Elaine's strings. If the high school had a manipulation class Josephine would be the teacher.
Elaine, you ran for commission to fix the school board. Maybe it's time to run for school board to fix the commission.
I was afraid this would happen. 6:05 AM's comment is spot on, but has nothing to do with the commission raising our taxes. Now this is turning into a school board thread. Can we get back on topic?
Is that why I ran for commissioner, 8:51 AM?
Elaine
The batteries were dead in my recorder last night, so I was not able to record either meeting. Please watch the meetings on TV. Note that neither Bendel or Linfante had anything to say about raising our taxes another 5%. Wasn't Linfante the one who said that she wants her viewers to know where she stands? Traditionally, all the commissioners would speak before any major action to explain their votes.
Elaine
I was hoping for a 3-2 vote.
But why no questions especially from a rookie like Kristen.
Wait a month and the school board will pass their backdoor 5% increase on us as well.
I will wager to guess that not a single R will even question the ethics of such a move. Not the R that is supposed to run for state house and not any of the Rs that have been elected.
They NEED the money more now than ever and it is their only shot to avoid a referendum on the bond...in fact, if I had to wager a guess, I would guess that Ms. Klein will try to shove the bond into this next budget so that she can get a 5% assessment increase plus a 2% Act 1 increase and the figure out a way to fit everything nicely into the puzzle.
And there will be much rejoicing by the school board.
But on the resident side we will have seen two 10% increases in three years.
Where does "it won't be a 50% tax increase" Kubit stand on this whole mess? He voted for Pooch's 2,89%/4.20% lie last night.
Maybe you need to not accept SB comments here but open another topic.
I do have a commision/SD question regarding the budgets of both though.
Reading MTLmagazine online-- if the magazine is going to be the mouthpiece for the school district why do we need to PIOs?
There's been a lot of talk by both organizations about sharing resources to save money. This seems like an easy place to start since they're doing it anyway. Just eliminate one of the over paid officers.
I knew if there was a tax increase in the budget, it would be a unanimous vote for "yay."
There's few things you can count on in life. The first is death. The second is Mt Lebanon raising taxes.
What I don't understand is why our local elected officials and administrators think it's always onward and upward when it comes to expenditures.
There is this mindset that we have to raise taxes, raise salaries and create more projects.
This is contrary to what happens in the private sector. There's no whining, no blame game. Instead the business philosophy is - this is what we have to do to survive!
Here's one example from networkworld.com:
"Global outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released results Monday from a survey of 100 human resource executives that showed 92% are initiating some type of cost-cutting actions. Among those, more than 55.6% of the companies said they were reducing headcount to lower expenses. Yet nearly half (44.4%) are resorting to other measures to decrease costs, and only 2% of those surveyed said they used permanent layoffs as their sole cost-cutting initiative. According to the findings, 82% of companies employed at least two cost-cutting methods to make their numbers."
Perhaps that last sentence shines a light. The municipality and school don't have numbers they must make. They always have the out of raising taxes to balance the budget.
Some communities---like Carnegie and Collier---understand that developing budgets at this time involves guesswork, so they are putting off setting adopting their 2013 spending plans until next month, as Judge Wettick's court order allows.
Don't be surprised if these two municipalties also wait till the summer to set their millage rates, because the same order provides that those levies don't have to be set until 10 days before the tax bills go out.
I think Mt. Lebanon residents deserve the same consideration.
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