What have we done about the stagnant revenue? Our response has been and continues to be to reduce expenses where possible. For the second straight year, we are proposing a budget with no workforce increases within the Administration. We have reduced capital expenditures to the minimum we feel is necessary to maintain the County’s buildings and to fulfill its obligations to its citizens. We issued a mandate to all department and division directors to reduce operating expenses by ten percent, wherever possible.
The result of this effort is that we were able to find $8.7 million in reductions in the General Fund. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, total spending in the General Fund will likely increase in 2010, as compared to 2009, and, without a tax increase, $15.6 million would be required to balance the 2010 budget. A large portion of the increase is due to a dramatic rise in the required contribution to the County’s pension fund. County-wide retirement related costs (retirement and retiree healthcare) are expected to rise from $13.1 million in 2009 to $19.9
million in 2010, an increase of $6.8 million (52%).
In 2009, for the first time in the four years of this Administration, we expect expenses to exceed revenue, meaning that we will have to use a portion of the fund balance to make ends meet. After three consecutive years of increasing the fund balance, we anticipate needing $10 million to balance revenue with expenditures. At the current tax rate, the gap between revenue and expenses is expected to continue in 2010, and we project that the reduction in fund balance will be even greater than $10 million in 2009. Unfortunately, at the current tax rate, this trend is
expected to continue in 2011.
When this Administration took office, we committed to maintaining a fund balance equal to two months of operating expenditures. This approach resulted in a very favorable bond rating of AA2 in 2009. The value of this commitment is also being demonstrated as this document is being finalized. It is late September and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has yet to pass a budget for a fiscal year that began on July 1, 2009. While many counties across the State have taken a variety of actions in response to the budget impasse in Harrisburg, some hurting longstanding
partnerships, Northampton County has been able to continue to meet all of its
commitments.
One approach to balancing the budget would be to continue to use the fund balance to meet expenditures, borrow more for capital projects and not fully fund our obligations for future retiree medical benefits. We reject this option as fiscally irresponsible.
Therefore, in compliance with the Home Rule Charter, we are submitting a budget for fiscal year 2010. The budget includes a modest one mill tax increase (9.3%) - which results in a $50 increase for a property with an assessed value of $50,000. While we understand that this will not be popular, we believe it to be absolutely necessary. Annualized over the four years of this Administration, this increase is 2.3% a year, which is less than the rate of inflation during that same four-year period. To not increase taxes now will only mean a larger increase in the future.
47 comments:
Disgraceful. More cuts should be sought. Raising taxes amid this economy is simply disgraceful. Leaving Stoffa and an irresponsible council with any fund is like leaving liquor in an alcoholic's cabinet. Disgraceful.
And this from Shuman's guy?
"A large portion of the increase is due to a dramatic rise in the required contribution to the County’s pension fund. County-wide retirement related costs (retirement and retiree healthcare) are expected to rise from $13.1 million in 2009 to $19.9
million in 2010, an increase of $6.8 million (52%)."
No shit. Think that might be because we, for way to long, have delivered retirement benefits to public employees which, many of us have said for years, were going to be impossible to sustain?
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were in a local establishment where we heard a group of guys celebrating full retirement at 40-something years old, a county prison guard, I believe, was being toasted.
I don't want to hear about obligations and contracts. Lots of private sector pensions have disappeared or ended up at PBGC. Time for these folks to feel the same pain. Enough is enough.
"No shit. Think that might be because we, for way to long, have delivered retirement benefits to public employees which, many of us have said for years, were going to be impossible to sustain?"
spot-on. the public sector absolutely needs to address the defined pension issue. it is the elephant in the room that no one has the courage to apeak of.
Don't blame the Democrats, Stoffa is the Republicans boy. Repub Chair Shuman banned any competition and made Stoffa his candidate.
This is a Republican tax increase by a lifetime bureaucrat. Two tax increases in four years, nice record. He is lucky the Press is in the bag for him. Read the Republican website for County Council candidates. They vow to support the multi-million dollar Health Department, the multi-million dollar work release and all Stoffa past and future tax increases.
I wonder if Ron Angle will vote for the tax increase. He was a major force in pushing Stoffa on everyone.
Enjoy your Republican big government liberal. When you see ohare and angle thank them for trashing every possible opponenet to this guy. Now you have no choice in November. HAHAHA!!!!
"A large portion of the increase is due to a dramatic rise in the required contribution to the County’s pension fund. County-wide retirement related costs (retirement and retiree healthcare) are expected to rise from $13.1 million in 2009 to $19.9
million in 2010, an increase of $6.8 million (52%)."
Couldn't agree w/ your post more. Defined benefit pension plans are predicated on, over extended periods, an expanding stock market. The avg. annual return for the DJIA from 1929 to 1942 was -10%, an 11 yr. "lost" period. If defined benefit pension plans were in wide-spread use for gov't agencies back then, they would have likely failed, leading to massive disruption of civil administration as workers struck or demanded restitution.
We may be on our way to finding out what happens to pension plans and their beneficiaries when they become unsustainable.
Does anybody want to take me up on a bet, if Stoffa was being challenged in November do you think he would be raising taxes now? Of course he would not, that would be political suicide in this horrible economic times. No candidate should go unchallenged, had our politcal system been in place and an actual contest been waged for the office of County Executive, Stoffa would be acting differently, cautiously, like someone worried about there job and re-election; not someone unchallenged with the ability to do what he wants with the knowledge that in January he will be sitting behind the same desk.
Bernie's taxes won't go up. Your buddy Stoffa did not raise your rent, did he, Bern?
Anon 8:18, You are exactly right. That is something the Republican Chair Roy Shuman knew and why he wanted no opposition to Stoffa. In this instance the Republicans want the big governemnt, check out their website.
ohare and angle have craped on the various folks who thought about running. Everyone knew Stoffa was going to raise taxes. Ohare bullshited about saving $10 million a year, whatever Stoffa told him to write. He has squandered millions left for him.
The press has always been in the bag for Stoffa. Many who know him are not surprised he raises taxes twice in fout years. There will be more in the years to come.
He is a lifetime bureaucrat that has sucked at the public tit his entire life. He couldn't manage his way out of a lit closet.
Thank the MSM, Angle and Ohare for this County Nightmare.
This 9.3% tax hike is actually one mill. That's a lot to people on fixed incomes. Even for people who are working, a small hit like that hurts during a recession. That's what bothers me. This is not the time to raise taxes if it can be avoided. So I would strive for a budget that (a) keeps two months in reserve as a rainy day fund; (b) imposes the necessary spending cuts to reduce or eliminate the tax increase.
Two of the best financial minds in the LV, Vic Mazziotti and Doran Hammon, came up with this as the proposed budget. It will be tough to find cuts they did not see for themselves.
But to those of you who feel, like me, that the tax hike is too high, please take a close look at the budget, which is posted online. Instead of taking the usual partisan shots, come up with some specific solutions. I will be doing that myself.
The wages in the Sheriff's office alone will go up $663k next year. That's too much. We can't change the contract, so I'd propose layoffs in that department. Will Democrats McClure, Dertinger and McHale support that?
I'd also eliminate or sharply reduce the $250k slush fund maintained by council, which they use to dole out money throughout the year. if they do't have it, they can't be tempted. Will they agree to this?
I'd also reduce funding to agencies like LANTA, as Cunningham has proposed. Will McHale, a LANTA board member, support that?
I will be looking at the budget over the next few days and invite all of you to make some specific suggestions. It's posted at the county web page.
Council members actually read this blog, and one of you might come up with something that a council member likes. Most of our ideas will probably be unworkable, but we might collectively come up with something that works.
Let's scrutinize that budget.
Mazziotti should retire liked he planned before he breaks the County budget. Hammon is a career bureaucrat who is loyal to whomever the Executive is at the time. Great mind ohare? He came up with the Reibman layoffs and freezes you screamed about.
In fairness I do have suggestions as well. Get rid of the Asst. Dir. of Administration, it is an unnecessary job for a Stoffa buddy. Also the job in Community Development made up for the Grucella guy.
There you go ohare. While you want to gut the protection of the sheriffs because of your snit, I found cuts that won't hurt the taxpayers.
Why pick on Dertinger, McHale and McClure, Stoffa is the Republicans man. At least they show up for meetings.
Let me get this straight.
Blue county.
Very blue state.
And Republicans are responsible for this disastrous mismanagement?
Bullshit.
That Rs have any say at all around here is remarkable. Hell, most Rs are disgruntled former Ds who switched when they couldn't climb to the top of that stinking shit heap - or get that plumb assignment at the bridge commission.
Shuman won't be splitting the atom anytime soon, but the fact that he's even being discussed as a serious player in NC politics is simply amazing.
Rs shouldn't matter much around here. And mostly they don't. They're like baseball's Northern League: a sometimes entertaining bunch of has-beens who flirted with playing for the big boys at one time.
NorCo Ds could screw up sleeves on a vest. Stop whining about Rs being the cause of your problems. Stoffa's a lifelong tax and spend trough slopper who fits the D mold quite well.
He and his financial shit stain are all yours.
"Two of the best financial minds in the LV, Vic Mazziotti and Doran Hammon, came up with this as the proposed budget. It will be tough to find cuts they did not see for themselves."
Again, that's because they, like all public budgeteers, start with the assumption that certain things are off the table before they start looking.
Contracts are reopened all the time. The layoff approach can work, but should first be used as leverage to reopen contracts. Aren't unions the "All-for-one-and-one-for-all" crowd? Tell them flat out: Reopen and agree to the necessary reductions in all compensation areas, or X number of you are out on your asses. You may be surprised at the outcome. It worked in a school district in central PA. If they say no and throw some their "brothers" under the bus, so be it. Take what you can get. Next time the contract comes up, those remaining get the same proposed reductions anyway, and it will be their own doing that that they have fewer bodies AND lower comp.
Hardball solutions to big problems will be unpleasant, no doubt. But the time has come to lead boldly, not follow the same old broken model.
I have a neighbor who is furious about the tax increase and is equally furious that his blind deaf and retarted aunt is on a waiting list to be taken care of by the County because there is not enough money and too many people in need. There is nothing more American than wanting something and not wanting to pay for it.
"In fairness I do have suggestions as well. Get rid of the Asst. Dir. of Administration, it is an unnecessary job for a Stoffa buddy. Also the job in Community Development made up for the Grucella guy. There you go ohare. While you want to gut the protection of the sheriffs because of your snit, I found cuts that won't hurt the taxpayers."
I asked for specific ideas that will reduce or eliminate a tax hike. This will not make one bit of difference. So you would eliminsate two positions to try and hurt Stoffa while imposing the same tax increase.
Try again.
"Contracts are reopened all the time. The layoff approach can work, but should first be used as leverage to reopen contracts."
When Reibman imposed layoffs plus a tax hike, he ruined the morale in the county. There are some employees who are so bitter now that nothing anyone does can change that.
Rather than speaking generically about unions, I wont to know what specific departments are bloated to the point where we can reduce their size.
One problem is that there are too many unions, 13 of them. That's ridicdlous, aqnd only enriches lawyers. Unions and management need to sit down and reduce the number of unions. That is in the financial interest of both county and union.
To all those who took ohare seriously when he said look for cuts. Unless you cut things he hates like the sheriffs, he will always say your ideas don't matter, it is partisan or it isn't that much money, etc..
Please remember ohare is just a Stoffa mouthpiece. He is the minister of propaganda. He and Angle pushed this guy.
Many of you are right. Political patronage positions should all be cut. Neither Mazzioti or Hamman will touch certain items.
For example the Human Services Department should only put in enough money to draw down state dollars. For three years Stoffa has been putting in millions more then necessary.
Stoffa could have forced the Courts and DA to go to Council for their jobs by not including them in his budget.
This is a lifetime bureaucrat who only knows how to spend and follow the path of least resistance. Thank you Republican Party, we have four more years of tax hikes and incompetent governemnt to look forward to because you decided this big government guy is your man.
Don't forget the Morning Callgirl and the Easton Excuse for promoting Stoffa and hiding his recodr and last four years, and you wonder why people don't read your rags.
3:05 - ::yawn::
Hey 8:51 the truth hurts, huh
This guy Stoffa is a maroon
You'll note Anon 3:05 & 9:09 have no proposals that will actually avoid a tax hike. They just want to feed off everyone's distate for a tax hike to encourage hatred.
"fixed income?" I don't know anyone's income is based on tax rates. So this sucks for everyone. No one is going to let me work extra overtime because of NorCo tax hike. Basically we are all in this sinking boat together. :(
Ohare attacked Callahan for supporting the right of local government to consider sales tax. Of course he bashed him because of his bromance Dent.
Now Stoffa sticks it hard to all home owners and ohare is complaining people are upset.
You have heard some good suggestions, ohater, you just don't like them.
Have Stoffa fire his croony hirees, cut back on non-mandated services and layoffs if contracts not re-opened.
Of course since Stoffa is a creature of the bureaucray, he can only feed it, not cut it.
You guys deserve each other.
"Have Stoffa fire his croony hirees, cut back on non-mandated services and layoffs if contracts not re-opened."
Which "croony hirees" does Stoffa fire? His entire cabinet? Just the two positions mentioned before? That's meaningless.
What non-mandated services are you talking about? Gun permits? Voter registration? Will probate? Recording of mortgages?
Layoffs? When that was done under Reibman, the result was disaster. It ruined the morale of some county workers forever. It hurt good people. Tell me where exactly these layoffs are supposed to occur. I've said the Sheriff's office is bloated, but even I would hesitate to cut the staff. Do you realize how many people will have to be laid off for it to matter? We're talking at least 20 people. My experience is that this is a bad idea.
Ironically, the same hacks who were screaming about voluntary furloughs are now demanding layoffs.
This is a monumental screw-up of epic proportions.
Blogmeister how u gonna get ur bud Angle to go for 10% Hike. Cant blame it on reibman et al. There is a surplus. It is our money. GIve it back and dont raise taxes. This is nonsense and from an alleged fiscal conservative....Stoffa showing his true masters, which has always been, the government and media.
Two more comments lacking any concrete suggestions.
Again
Stoffa has done a good job on the budget, except for the bloated Sheriff's dept. However the increase is mostly due to pension OBLIGATIONS. I capitalized that for the teabag heads..They cry out against a State tax increase so the burden is then placed on the local school boards and municipalities. Then when they are forced, due to State cutbacks, to raise taxes to pay for services, the teabaggers yell again.. We are talking about $1. a week here. Give me a break!!
Bernie,
They'll never have concrete suggestions. It's just cut everything and let me spend my dollar a week on my smokes and confederate flag decals!
You want a concrete suggestion..Forget about that ridiculous health department and use the casino money to reduce taxes..The last thing needed in this economy is a new government department!! Angle, if you are paying attention, this is your chance to rid the county of this outrageous idea once and for all!!
"A large portion of the increase is due to a dramatic rise in the required contribution to the County’s pension fund. County-wide retirement related costs (retirement and retiree healthcare) are expected to rise from $13.1 million in 2009 to $19.9
million in 2010, an increase of $6.8 million (52%)."
OK, concrete solution. Stoffa himself says the above is the big issue. So deal with it.
In the private sector, many companies who don't have the money simply tell their employees:
We can't afford the pension contribution anymore. Everything is frozen. That game is over.
These companies had union contracts, and they pulled it off anyhow.
No one has yet made a case for why public employees are so special that they should not be subject to the same reality as those who fund them.
We can't do it because we will hurt morale? Screw morale. Morale is a luxury. They have jobs in very tough times. That should be enough to make them smile. If they can't find satisfaction in that, they can get the hell out and try their luck in the real world.
Anon 11:48, The county exec and council have no power unilaterally to change fixed-benefit pension funds. That must come from H-burg. So you've identified a big problem, but haven't explained what a county can do about it.
I have identified an area, no, make that: The County Executive has identified an area responsible for a "large portion of the increase".
Last time I checked, he was the one being paid to do the work of fixing problems like this.
Mr. Stoffa says this is the bulk of the problem. So, the question isn't how I think they should go about fixing it. The question is:
What will HE do about it?
Meantime, I'll look into it for him, since he wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot pole.
Go ahead and look into it. My understanding is that neither exec nor council have much control over a fixed benefit pension plan. And I really don't think anyone has the right, retroactively, to change that benefit. The best you can do is make changes for the future, so whatever you do will have no impact on the bottom line. I'd agree changes are in order, but that must come from the land of midnight payraises, which can't even agree on its own budget.
Anonn 11:40, forget the Casino money, two big problems with that one.
First, Stoffa gave over half of what the County SHOULD have recieved away. He penned a deal to give over half the County share to Allenwon, Lehigh County and $$$ over and above what Bethlehem already gets. So every year Northampton County will blow off over $2.5 million on the signature of Stoffa.
Second, the less than half of the revenue we are keeping, he has declared will go to the new Health Department. Of course that Department will cost the County millions more than even the Casino revenue.
The MSM and Stoffa know this already, that is why Stoffa tax increase was buried in the Morning Callgirl. This is all about building a huge pile of money to prove we can afford this new crazy local bureaucracy.
Ohare will go on and on about nothing can be done, and don't pick on poor John even though he and his buddy Angle did far worse to Reibman. Fact is Stoffa is a lifelong liberal Democrat endorsed by the liberal Republican Party of the Peoples Republic of Northampton.
Don't be a hypocrite Ohare. Your buddy is a dismal failure and it is sad the County has no choices this November. I realize the Stoffa kids post on here but face it your father may be a decent guy but he is not County Executive material.
I suspect John Stoffa has a few defenders other than his own children. Lehigh County gets only a small share of casino proceeeds, and that is as is decided by law. Once again, no specific proposal for reducing the tax increase in this year's budget, which is posted online. It's easier to just smear someone with half truths and lies.
Hey ohare cite the law that gives Lehigh County(not a host County) any right to a share of the casino fees.
Please do not say it is because Bethlehem is in Lehigh County. Under the Law, Northampton County is considered the host County and the fees go to Bethlehem which is not legally obligated to give a nickel to Lehigh.
You are wrong. LC gets a share of the gambling revenue as per the law. If you do not like it, write to Harrisburg.
Check with your buddy Angle even he voted to oppose Stoffa signing over half the money away.
There is no law, just an agreement Stoffa signed, voluntarily giving half the money away.
Those are the facts, check the council record ask Angle.
Facts are facts even in your universe.
Bernie is correct about the state law allocating the proceeds from the casinos. However, my understanding is that the legislation was the result of a deal the the County executive agreed to.
The position of the county before Stoffa was that the host County and Host City get the host fees. That was the law.
Stoffa came along and agreed to the cockemamy plan to give over half the County money away. This plan hatched by some local Leghigh County State officials should have been laughed at. Not by your boy Stoffa he signed on the line and the law was amended in Harrisburg.
Had Stoffa done nothing we would all be better off, now that he is Executive he does nothing when he should be working.
The old tale about the Casino could have gone to Allentown is BS. Everyone in Politics knew damn well the Casino was going to Bethlehem. Everyone except good old Stoffa.
So Ohare again you are still the half-truth King as usual.
There are not enough votes on Council for this increase.
Probably not, but unless they come up w/ an alternative, this becomes law.
No, if they reject the budget it goes back to the Executive and he must bring in a budget that will get the necessary five votes.
The only thing council has to do is vote. If Stoffa does not like those apples he should resign.
I suggest you read the charter. If they reject the budget without coming up with their own alternative, Stoffa's budget becomes law.
Check out this link. http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/348/chapter1/s1.7-704.html
It is deemed adopted unless they come up w/ an alternative.
I believe Ohare is right. I also believe the County Council should not vote for it as a show of support for the taxpayers. Let everyone know this is a false and untrue budget. Let all know that this is Stoffa's budget and not the budget of the people.
By not voting for it or an alternative, that budget will be deemed adopted. And this is how council shows its support for the people? That's nonsense.
Post a Comment