LH City Council Approves Preliminary No-Tax-Increase Budget
By Scott Johnson
LOCK HAVEN – As expected, City Council Monday night unanimously passed – on first reading – a budget that calls for no new taxes for 2019.
The tax rate for general purposes is 26.32036 mills on land and 5.41509 mills on buildings and improvements for each dollar of assessed valuation.
Member Richard Morris had suggested simplifying the rates down to hundreths of mills, but that died for the lack of a second.
City Manager Greg Wilson said the effective tax rate, due to the city applying to different millages for land and improvements, has reduced from this year slightly from 9.06 to 9.0571 mills. He added the proposed budget will be posted online – in both the traditional and a new user-friendly forms – and available at City Hall.
Both Councilmen Steve Stevenson and Joel Long applauded Wilson on the new user-friendly form, using pie charts.
Tammy Garrison, executive director of the Ross Library in Lock Haven, asked council to increase its donation to the library $1,000 to $29,000 for next year, saying part of the money would be used to increase internet speed from 25 to 75 gigabytes. She added that 5,950 people in Lock Haven use the library and there were 70,000 check-outs of materials last year.
Also, Kasey Campbell, Downtown Lock Haven manager, asked council to continue with its $15,000 it donated this year.
She noted the organization has started a new mobile app and downtown business vacancies are now down to four.
Campbell said Downtown Lock Haven Inc. has 78 current business members and five community members. She added a new City Christmas tree has been selected and it is scheduled to be installed in Triangle Park this week.
The general fund of the budget is comprised of about 65 percent wages and benefits, Wilson said, with an 8-percent increase in health care costs.
The final budget is set to be officially adopted on Dec. 17.
In other matters Monday night, Wilson told council the city received a Community Development Block Grant Program Performance Review for 2010-2015. He said it included one finding that the Clinton County
Housing Coalition paid $110,000 for its new homeless shelter while the Salvation Army had the building appraised for $95,000, but the organization had a selling price of $135,000.
He asked council if it was interested in drafting a policy to prohibit the city from using CDBG funding to purchase property.
“I don’t think we should be brow-beaten into not doing it at all,” said Morris.
“They’re not brow-beating us at all,” Wilson responded.
Councilman Rick Conklin said he would like to have written, “vague” policy in place, but no action was taken by council.
Wilson said the Lock Haven Water Authority was to take down trees at Zindel Park, but the extremely wet weather had postponed that until last week, which also didn’t happen. However, he noted deceased Ash trees are planned to be removed due to beetle infestation.
Morris brought up an email from an unidentified downtown business owner sent to council about offering two-hour free parking on Main Street from Thanksgiving to the end of the year.
Wilson responded the parking meters are having the desired effect of increasing parking turnover in the central business district and he and several councilmen noted that program would be very manpower intensive and unmanageable. Council decided to possibly revisit the issue at the beginning of next year.
Also council approved hiring Dan Ake as a relief driver for Citizen’s Hose Co. to replace Craig Simcox who resigned.
