Published: Sunday, August 5, 2007
Council mulls changes to finance plan
By VIRGINIA ROSS
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — City council is considering making changes to a financial-recovery plan developed by a state-appointed coordinator.
Council has scheduled a special work session for Tuesday to discuss the matter. Officials said they plan to review the state coordinator's financial recovery plan and an alternative plan drafted by Mayor Wayne Alexander. The work session is to start at 6 p.m. in council chambers at the City Building.
Any alternative plan would have to be accepted by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, or the city could risk losing state funds.
The coordinator, among other recommendations, has proposed:
Increasing property and wage taxes.
Freezing police wages.
Converting the fire department from a full-time to a combined full-time and part-time department.
Switching to a council-manager form of government. The city now has a mayor-council form of government that has been in place since 1968.
The state declared the city financially distressed earlier this year under Pennsylvania Act 47, and then appointed Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott of Pittsburgh and Public Financial Management of Philadelphia as the coordinator. The coordinator is responsible for developing a financial recovery plan for the city. The coordinator presented its recovery plan to the city in June.
Time constraint
Act 47 gives council 25 days from the date of the coordinator's public meeting, conducted July 16, to vote on the plan as an ordinance.
Council is scheduled to vote on whether to make the state's plan an ordinance Wednesday. If council rejects the state plan the mayor has 14 days to develop an alternative proposal and present it to council for consideration. Alexander said he wanted to have a plan prepared should council vote down the state coordinator's plan. But if the state rejects the mayor's plan the city could risk losing state funds.
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