2008 Luzerne County Budget Looks Bleak (Scranton, Wilkes-Barre: fit in, sale, real estate market)

[ScranBarre]

I'm sitting here honestly aghast to see Luzerne County Majority Commissioner Greg Skrepenak praising next year's budget in the Times-Leader simply because it doesn't contain a tax hike or layoffs. What he fails to mention is that there is an $8,500,000 deficit in 2008.

This particular article quotes Minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban as saying "It's one massive shell game" in his decision to vote against the budget, which still passed due to the affirmative votes of his two colleagues.

"People forget the county is not raising taxes. Let Urban vote for a tax increase if he wants to help plug the deficit" was more or less the pompous rebuttal given by Mr. Skrepenak.

I don't know about all of you here on City-Data, but I'd rather stomach a small tax increase NOW to prevent a much larger one later when Skrepenak's mindset of "borrow now and worry later" finally catches up with us. After all, borrowing is a coward's way of raising taxes, is it not, as it ultimately permits incumbents to save face while creating a mess for their successors.

Urban is considering a 5-mil tax increase, which would generate an additional $3,500,000 in revenue for 2008 and reduce the deficit to $5,000,000. Hopefully lay offs and tightening the belt will help to offset that remainder.

Here are some more tidbits from the article that I take issue with:

Diaz said the 2008 budget relies heavily on the sale of county-owned land and collecting back taxes.

Diaz can't be serious, can he? With how flooded Luzerne County's real estate market currently is, we'd have to hope that this county-owned land is either very strategically-located or competitively-priced (or both) in order to sell it in 2008. If not, then what happens? Furthermore, many governmental bodies in our area lag in collecting tax revenues---look at Scranton's inability to collect all of its wage tax revenues as a prime example. What makes them so certain Luzerne County will be any more successful? If the budget relies "heavily" on these two items, then Lord help us in 2009! (or at least those who still live in Luzerne County, as I hope to move away in 2009).

Requests for 70 new positions were denied.

So what? I'd expect nothing less from a county in such dire financial straits. Considering our county already has a much larger payroll than many other comparably-sized counties, why would we want to increase that by 70 more?

County officials also listed the following budget plans for 2008:

Skrepenak thinking? This ought to be good.

Hire a grant writer to obtain criminal justice funding.

In other words, 70 positions were denied, yet here is one prime example of a position being created. How many others were also NOT denied? Grant writing isn't terribly complicated; there's even a "Dummies" book dedicated to this very issue (too bad there's not a "Being a Lucid County Commissioner for Dummies" book). Do you mean to tell me there is not one individual in the criminal justice department of the county who can't write grants?

Add another county solicitor to offset the county's "escalating legal costs," especially in labor matters.

Here's a suggestion. Stop screwing up so much, and then perhaps you wouldn't be sued so much! Why should our hard-earned tax dollars be spent on creating a new position designed to mitigate financial damages incurred due to stupidity? Also, how will adding someone to the pay roll "offset" rising legal costs? Wouldn't that just increase them?

Investigate programs to reduce health care costs, including expanding the wellness program.

You have got to be kidding me. We are expected to spend more money to tell county workers to stop being fat, lazy, chain-smoking, binge-drinking slobs? I didn't expect my employer to pay for programs aimed at "educating" me on ways to stay healthy via wellness programs in order to minimize their health care liabilities. You know why? I didn't NEED someone to push me along. I don't need to waste tax dollars to learn "Gee. Maybe smoking increases my chance of getting lung cancer" or "The less Big Macs I eat, the less weight I'll gain, and the less likely I'll be to develop heart disease later in life." Opening your front door on your day off and going for a jog shouldn't cost the taxpayers ANYTHING. Speaking of fitness, why doesn't Skrepenak practice what he preaches? He looks to be over 300 lbs.!

Lock down the budget, which will force managers to find other funding within their budgets when they hit their maximum spending allotment.

This is quite possibly the only part of the budget details that were disclosed in the media article that I AGREED with. Telling county departments to go on a diet and live within their means instead of whining for more and more is something I approve of.

Diaz has asked commissioners to restrict all discretionary spending during the first quarter of the year, including expenses for supplies, travel, meetings/conferences, and training.

Isn't this a given. I'm currently unemployed. I've drastically reduced my spending as a result. When your financial situation deteriorates, you adapt accordingly. I don't see any benefit in Skrepenak and/or Tucker going on any sort of conferences or training events anyways in 2008, since they apparently didn't work in 2007. Maryanne Petrilla seems to possess more intellect and could probably gain more out of further specialized training.

"Managers must remember the fact that if there are monies in an expense line it does not mean you need to spend it."

Well, duh! I've heard horror stories about local government agencies squandering money from overfunded budgets because they have the mentality of "if we don't spend it, then they'll take it away." So what? If you didn't need it in the first place, then why expect it in successive years? One would think that managers would have an incentive to help trim the county's budget---the more they help to reduce costs, the less our tax increase (which they also have to pay) will be.

Urban said the county is still relying too much on debt, and predicted county taxes will increase 25% to 30% after reassessment. He said the court is "sitting on" $1.75 million in probation funds that could be used to help the county's financial situation.

Unbelievable. Borrow, borrow, borrow is the name of the game in this county, and now the excessive interest rates are catching up with us, and we have to borrow more to pay off what we already borrowed! Just keep digging that hole deeper and deeper, and then force your successors to whammy tax payers with a massive tax hike to balance the budget, subjecting THEM to scrutiny to clean up YOUR mess! I'm curious about this $1.75 million.

Skrepenak said people want cuts but will then complain if there are reductions in county services.

If Tim Grier is any indicator of public sentiment right now in Luzerne County, then I think it is CRYSTAL clear that the voters want this foolish borrowing to balance annual budgets to cease. Lay off workers. Cut the pork. It's not that difficult. I, for one, don't notice too much that the county does for me---I rely more heavily upon my municipality and the state and Federal governments. I can already see blatant county waste every time I drive along North River Street and see TWO crossing guards next to the same crosswalk near the courthouse. Crossing guards are non-essential items. We college students play "Frog*ger" with cars all the time at every other crosswalk on busy streets near King's College, why spend so much money so that the lawyers don't have to look both ways before crossing, as most people do?

[Lehigh Valley Native]

This county needs to cut spending, not raise taxes or borrow money. We have about 400 more employees in county govt., over similar size counties. Do you know how much that costs? At an avg. salary of 30k a year, it costs $12million a year. Kick in a few more million for benefits and you are paying 15 million more a year for employees that other, well managed counties are not paying.
Raise taxes? They are already maxed out here, raising taxes requires court approval. Don't you think taxes are high enough.
As long as we let an idiot like "skrep" run the show, this is what you get.
Until someone decides cuts need to be made in the county, I'll just eat my popcorn, watch the county drama and thank my lucky stars I have yet to buy real estate here.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by Lehigh Valley Native

This county needs to cut spending, not raise taxes or borrow money. We have about 400 more employees in county govt., over similar size counties. Do you know how much that costs? At an avg. salary of 30k a year, it costs $12million a year. Kick in a few more million for benefits and you are paying 15 million more a year for employees that other, well managed counties are not paying.
Raise taxes? They are already maxed out here, raising taxes requires court approval. Don't you think taxes are high enough.
As long as we let an idiot like "skrep" run the show, this is what you get.
Until someone decides cuts need to be made in the county, I'll just eat my popcorn, watch the county drama and thank my lucky stars I have yet to buy real estate here.

I'm booking it to Lackawanna County in 2009. Yes, politics there are just as corrupt, but at least their politicians possess marginal intelligence and don't run on the platform of "I was a football player. You love the NFL. This makes me qualified. Vote for me."

I agree wholeheartedly about cutting back drastically on the payroll. I couldn't believe I read that departments were asking for 70 more employees, which were thankfully turned down, nor could I believe that with just the brief excerpts of the budget the Times-Leader reported, at least two more positions were being created---needless ones at that.

This county overall is just far too fragmented. We have 76 different municipalities. Why? Taxpayers have to pay for many more police departments, fire departments, borough council members, township supervisors, mayors, DPWs, etc. than they would have to if more of these municipalities were consolidated and streamlined. Why do we have a town like Jeddo (pop. 136) when Hazle Township has long admitted that it wants to absorb it? Why do we have towns like Sugar Notch (pop. 969) and Warrior Run (pop. 590) completely surrounded by massive Hanover Township? Why do we have Pringle (pop. 946) and Courtdale (pop. 751) when they both could and should be absorbed into Kingston? Why do we have Penn Lake Park (pop. 278) when it could and should be absorbed into Bear Creek Township? Speaking of that township, it should likewise devour Bear Creek Village (pop. 273). I could go on for hours. The duplication of services in this county is wasteful and needless. If Wilkes-Barre City were to annex Wilkes-Barre Township, all of the tax revenues from those chain stores would go right into the city coffers, where the additional revenues of several million per year could permit them to hire more police, pave streets, plant more trees, etc. to improve the quality-of-life for 41,000+ whereas the current set-up only benefits a township of 3,000.

I agree that higher taxes aren't the solution, but it's obvious that Skrepenak does NOT want to pursue that route. He even said so in this article. However, he also refuses to cut services or lay people off. To him, borrowing is the solution---I dread to think of what he does with credit cards!

[Lehigh Valley Native]

All those little hamlets you mention, I know a few of them that even have police departments. Take Edwardsville, why the cash strapped boro has a police department baffles me, when it could contract Kingston for coverage or use State Police.