{"id":5612,"date":"2012-12-04T22:27:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=5612"},"modified":"2012-12-05T08:23:24","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T13:23:24","slug":"county-poised-to-hike-taxes-for-1st-time-in-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/?p=5612","title":{"rendered":"County poised to hike taxes for 1st time in 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Increase is needed to maintain valued services, commissioners said<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h1>\n
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By Kathleen Brady Shea<\/strong><\/span>,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

County Commissioners Ryan Costello (from left), Terence Farrell and Kathi Cozzone will vote on the proposed 2013 budget on Dec. 13.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Chester County Commissioners held a meeting Tuesday night to elicit comment on the preliminary 2013 budget. Even though the \u00a0blueprint contains the first tax increase in five years, it generated nary a whimper from the public.<\/p>\n

The $521.8 million proposal, scheduled for a vote on Dec. 13, includes a \u00bd-mill tax hike that translates to $32.86 for a property assessed at the median value of $165,760, said County Chief Executive Officer Mark Rupsis.<\/p>\n

The need to raise property taxes \u2013 the only tax the commissioners are authorized to levy \u2013 resulted from a combination of factors, said Rupsis. Chief among them is the $55 million cost associated with switching from an analog to a digital radio system for\u00a0 the county\u2019s Department of Emergency Services. Although a bond issue will spread the cost over a number of years, the expenditure will have a significant impact, Rupsis said.<\/p>\n

In addition, Rupsis said a flat tax base, declining interest income, rising employee pension and benefit costs, and a decrease in fees for county services also contributed to a budget gap. For example, fines and costs collected by district judges declined because more people qualified as indigent, he said.<\/p>\n

Elaborating on reduced interest income, Rupsis said the county earned nearly $12 million in 2007, an amount that eliminated the need for a 1\/3-mill tax increase. In 2013, interest earnings are\u00a0 estimated at $208,700, a decrease of about $170,000 from 2012.<\/p>\n

The proposed 2013 budget would increase from $514.1 million in 2012 to $521.8 million, which includes about $424 million in operating expenses and $97 million in capital expenses.<\/p>\n

Rupsis said many cost-cutting measures were employed to help close the budget gap. He said county employees are paying 22 percent more for health insurance than they did in 2008. Department heads pared their budgets by 3 percent, and the county eliminated 200 positions this past year through 87 layoffs and attrition, Rupsis said.<\/p>\n

Charles Kalemjian of Uwchlan Township questioned the \u201cinordinate amount of money\u201d for the radio system, but he was assured by the commissioners that the cost, estimated\u00a0 several years ago at $90 million, had been whittled down as much as possible. \u201cThis is a project that really can\u2019t wait,\u201d said Commissioner Kathi Cozzone, explaining that it is \u201cdifficult, if not impossible\u201d to get parts for the antiquated equipment.<\/p>\n

Commissioners\u2019 Chairman Terence Farrell added that the current system, purchased in the \u201890s, costs over $1 million a year to maintain. The new system will be less expensive over time since it can be updated with software, he said.<\/p>\n

All three commissioners expressed surprise that they had not received more complaints about the proposed tax hike. \u201cWe received more input for pasta than we had for this budget,\u201d Farrell said, referring to a Nov. 27 request by a local congregation of Pastafarians.<\/p>\n

The group, whose deity was identified as the flying spaghetti monster, sought representation \u2013 specifically a tree with pasta-themed ornaments \u2013 in the county\u2019s holiday display on the lawn of the historic courthouse.\u00a0 The request, which was denied, was excerpted from the video of the commissioners\u2019 meeting and turned into a YouTube hit with nearly 24,000 viewings as of Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Although far fewer people used their noodles to respond to the budget process, the commissioners theorized that citizens seemed to understand today\u2019s economic realities and to value the services the county provides.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these things are beyond our control,\u201d said Commissioner Ryan Costello, addressing about 20 spectators, half a dozen of\u00a0 whom were county employees. Costello said he believed residents appreciated \u201ccommon-sense, cost-cutting actions across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Increase is needed to maintain valued services, commissioners said By Kathleen Brady Shea,\u00a0Managing Editor, The Times The Chester County Commissioners held a meeting Tuesday night to elicit comment on the preliminary 2013 budget. Even though the \u00a0blueprint contains the first tax increase in five years, it generated nary a whimper from the public. The $521.8 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[1512,1514,1513,1510,1511],"class_list":["post-5612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-commissioner-kathi-cozzone","tag-commissioner-ryan-costello","tag-commissioners-chairman-terence-farrell","tag-county-chief-executive-officer-mark-rupsis","tag-pastafarians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennetttimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}