Quote Originally Posted by andreahaxton View Post
AGENDA
COUNCIL MEETING
MONDAY, JULY 9, 2012
COUNCIL CHAMBERS

A resolution establishing a 0% shift for Lackawanna School District adjusted base proportions.
A resolution establishing a 20% shift for Lackawanna School District adjusted base proportions
A resolution establishing a 20% shift for city of Lackawanna adjusted base proportions
Ordinances
An ordinance adopting the operation budget for the City of Lackawanna 2012 – 2013.
Tabled Items:
************************************************** ********************************
:eek
:

Lackawanna OKs veto-free budget

By Jay Tokasz
News Staff Reporter
Published:July 10, 2012, 12:00 AM

The Lackawanna City Council overrode Mayor Geoffrey M. Szymanski's budget vetoes Monday and approved a $23.6 million city spending plan for 2012-13.

Council members spent little time during Monday's meeting speaking about the budget, which has become a source of contention between them and the mayor.

Council President Henry R. Pirowski simply described the Council's budget, which was first adopted June 9, as "more fiscally prudent" than what Szymanski and his department heads had proposed.

Szymanski vetoed 19 separate line items of the Council's budget, which slashed the salaries of several department heads, cut allocations for overtime in the Police and Fire departments and eliminated proposed hirings of additional public works employees and a new police officer.

In particular, the Council moved to cut the salaries of the longtime city comptroller and the commissioner of public works by two-thirds, to $10,000 per year.

Both of those department heads already are receiving pension funds from the state retirement system.

Council members argued during the back-and-forth of the budget process that the city could not afford spending more for employees and needed to trim wherever possible.

Szymanski maintained that understaffing in public works could threaten the delivery of basic city services such as garbage collection and snowplowing.

With its veto override by a 4-0 vote, the Council's budget will now guide spending for the 2012-13 fiscal year, which begins Aug. 1.

Also Monday, the Council rejected a request from the Lackawanna City School District to maintain the 2011-12 proportion of taxes raised from homestead and nonhomestead properties in 2012-13 - at least for school taxes.

Instead, the Council again approved a 20 percent shift - which means more of the property tax burden will now fall on city homeowners in an effort to ease taxes on businesses and spur commercial growth.

The move increases the city's homestead tax rate by 7.7 percent, to $13.33 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. The nonhomestead rate will decrease by 10.7 percent, to $31.65 per $1,000. The shift was intended to help small businesses locate in Lackawanna, Pirowski said.

But resident Joseph Dicenzo argued that the tax shift will benefit big businesses only, while driving away more city homeowners and ultimately hurting the small businesses.

"You're going to hurt them," he said, "because the people who patronize mom-and-pop businesses are going to have less money."

[email]jtokasz@buffnews.com[/email