Wayne on hook for state shortfall

Property tax increase likely

DAVID HULSE
Posted 11/15/17

HONESDALE, PA — Human Services Director Andrea Whyte delivered the state’s bad news to the county commissioners on November 9. She reported that Wayne County’s Children and Youth …

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Wayne on hook for state shortfall

Property tax increase likely

Posted

HONESDALE, PA — Human Services Director Andrea Whyte delivered the state’s bad news to the county commissioners on November 9.

She reported that Wayne County’s Children and Youth Services final expenditures for the fourth quarter of state’s fiscal year (ending 6-30-17) amounted to $5,306,000. Of that, Wayne is responsible for about $1,114,260. The state of Pennsylvania is responsible for the remainder, some $4,191,740, which in short… they don’t have.

The state did a bookkeeping maneuver, shifting the payment of fourth-quarter (spring) 2017 money to the third quarter (winter) of 2018. But the bills are still due, and Wayne is on the hook.

“We’ll make up some of it with money on hand. Some will be reflected in a tax increase,” Commissioners Chair Brian Smith said.

“The money’s not just lying around,” Commissioner Wendell Kay said. “We’re hot about it. Harrisburg is fond of reminding us that they’re not raising state taxes. They are, in fact, raising local taxes.”

“The instability in the state process has left us hanging,” Smith said.

Wayne will again be seeking a tax-anticipation note to assist, but not against the state shortfall. “Our banks have been good about the rates,” Kay said.

He recalled that the state has come up short in past. “A big shortfall in 2009. That scared us. We had to cut employee hours and officials took voluntary pay cuts. More recently, Wayne has had to create waiting lists for some social services.

Smith said there would be no layoffs this time.

In other business, the commissioners reported on a November 3 meeting with state officials about efforts to save the historic, former Hankins Pond Dam from demolition. Department of Environmental Protection and Game Commission officials, who have joint oversight over the dam, did not appear. Smith said state representatives Jonathan Fritz and Mike Peifer offered to let the county take the dam, but Smith said if the $1.5 million demolition order remained in force, “We’re not going there.”

Considered a high-hazard dam, even though the pond is gone, officials say the dam still has to go. Smith said engineers could see what might be saved. Smith said it didn’t make sense. The culvert underneath the downstream highway is the same size as the old dam outlet, Smith said. The problem doesn’t go away. “The road is going to be the dam,” he said.

They also opened, and tabled for engineering review, two bids for work funded by a Local Share Account (LSA) gaming grant on the Newfoundland Food Pantry project, and heard Dreher Township supervisors John Young, David Peet, and Jerry McClain, who sought the commissioners’ support with re-filing an LSA grant application for work on their firehouse and park.

honesdale, wayne county, taxes

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