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Smaller county municipalities fail to pass the amendment of one vote per governing body.
NANTICOKE – Smaller municipalities got the treatment they expected when it came to voting for an amendment to the Luzerne County Tax Collection Committee bylaws Wednesday.
Despite having more physical voting candidates for the motion to make the voting system one vote per governing body, the weighted vote meant that 41 votes for the amendment lost to 18 votes against the change.
The votes of places such as Wilkes-Barre Area School District, Dallas School District, Pittston City and Kingston carried more weight under the voting system than places such as Luzerne or Nuangola did.
Steve Hahn, representing both Hazleton Area School District and Butler Township, said after the meeting that the vote totally disenfranchised the smaller communities in the county, and he did not blame them for the anger they expressed during the meeting.
The system was unfair, and a change needs to be made at the state level to rectify the voting system, he said.
The weighted system was proposed by the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development as a fair way of distributing power based on population and income, and was supported by the members of the bylaws committee who represented larger taxing bodies.
Hahn, who represents 15 percent of the voting delegates because of his representation of the school district, moved the unsuccessful amendment proposing one vote per body.
Several delegates from smaller municipalities left after the vote, commenting that there was no longer any point in their remaining involved in the process as they no longer had any effective say in the proceedings.
Hahn noted the real power in choosing an earned income tax collector for the county now is in the hands of the school districts, who only take about 5 percent of their income from earned income taxes, and the major cities.
State representatives in Harrisburg are considering a plan to institute one vote per taxing body, after receiving complaints about the current system from many municipalities, municipal representatives noted after the meeting.
Two school districts, Hanover Area and Northwest Area, did not attend the Wednesday meeting, and Hazleton city was also absent. Wilkes-Barre City representative Tim Henry attended part of the meeting but left before any of the decisions were made.
In the only other decision of the meeting, the committee appointed Chariton and Schwager of Wilkes-Barre as committee solicitors, on the same weighted voting system.