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WILKES-BARRE — With Mayor Tony George’s absence at the city council meeting Thursday night questions went unanswered about how he plans to amend this year’s budget and if layoffs are included.
Earlier this week George decided not to attend the meetings to allow the public to “have an open dialogue” with council. In his place, he instructed departments heads to attend and respond to questions from the public. But people wanted to hear from George.
Jim Burden said mayors have always attended the meetings and called for George to do the same. As a councilman George frequently clashed with the former office holder Tom Leighton, Burden noted.
“Let him sit here and take the bullets like Leighton did,” Burden said.
Council Chairman Bill Barrett sided with Burden and added that other council members felt the same way.
“I don’t think there’s anyone here who disagrees. It is advantageous to have the mayor here,” Barrett said.
Barrett encouraged residents to attend a Feb. 9 public hearing on the mayor’s proposed amendments. He told the audience council has been looking at revenue lines in the $51.5 million balanced budget submitted by Leighton and approved by the previous council that included himself and Vice Chairman Mike Merritt. Three new people joined council this year, and one of them, Beth Gilbert, replaced George who voted against the budget that did not contain a property tax increase. George is considering raising taxes 25 mills in his amended budget.
The possibility of layoffs in the fire department concerned Greg Freitas, vice president of Local 104 of the International Association of Fire Fighters. The way he found out about the possible layoffs upset him.
“Why did I have to hear about possible firefighter layoffs through the news media at 5:30 in the afternoon last Friday? Don’t you think that it would have been more appropriate just to give us a call and let us know what was going on?” Freitas asked.
In December 2012, Leighton furloughed 11 firefighters due to a budget shortfall caused by a holdup in payment of earned income tax revenues from a contractor. The firefighters were brought back in February 2013.
Freitas also sought clarification on whether the $1.8 million in repairs to the police station were paid last year and why the mayor plans to cut to $0 a $250,000 line item for collection of delinquent fines from magistrates’s courts.
In response to the question about the fines, City Administrator Greg Barrouk said the city last year negotiated with a third-party collection agency to go after the fines on behalf of Luzerne County that will then forward the money to Wilkes-Barre.
“It’s up to the county to sign the contract and then move forward from there. It’s out of our hands 100 percent,” Barrouk explained.
Finance Director Brett Kittrick confirmed the repairs to the police station were not budgeted, but were paid last year.
He replied, “No,” to Gilbert’s question on whether the city took out a loan to pay the repairs.
Councilman Mike Belusko still wanted an explanation. “So we just had an extra $1.8 million laying around? Is that what you’re saying?” he asked.
Barrouk spoke up and said the city’s books show a $3 million deficit for 2015 , but that would change as revenues continue to come in this year as late as May. “So we won’t know what that exact number is. But that number is projected roughly to be a $1.8 million deficit,” he said.
Freitas pressed him for information about the possible layoffs.
“Nothing’s set in stone,” Barrouk said.
Barrett said the collection company Navient was hired last year without bid as a professional service and it’s optimistic it can work through the challenges ahead of it.
At the start of the hour-long meeting council acted on agenda items discussed during Tuesday night’s work session. It approved extending for an additional five years until January 2023 the term of the interest-free, 30-year loan to Wilkes-Barre Parking Authority. It also rescinded previous resolutions applying for Local Share Account grants from revenues from the Mohegan Sun Pocono casino and approved new applications containing corrected dollar amounts:
• $52,860 for roofs repairs to the Child Development Council
• $4.3 million for the Solomon Creek Flood Mitigation Project
• $1.5 million for the Mill Creek Flood Mitigation Project.