By Liz Zemba
The Tribune-Review
UNIONTOWN, Pa. — Uniontown residents won’t see a tax increase next year, but it will cost them in the form of seven laid-off firefighters and a wage freeze for city employees.
Accountants on Tuesday advised council the city’s fiscal problems can be traced to 2007, when a prior administration allegedly siphoned money from a library and sanitation fund to cover general fund expenses.
The 2010 budget presented yesterday maintains taxes at 13.235 mills. The balanced spending plan, which will be formally adopted Dec. 17, calls for $4.6 million in revenues and expenses.
Kim Marshall, city clerk, said the budget includes a 20 percent increase in health care costs, a 10-percent increase in electricity costs and a $100,000 increase in worker’s compensation insurance.
A cost-cutting measure approved this month calls for layoffs of seven of the city’s 13 firefighters. Fire Chief Chuck Coldren last night pleaded with council to avert the pending layoffs.
“It’s a scary situation that I’m placed in,” said Coldren, repeating earlier assertions that the safety of both firefighters and residents will be endangered with the scaled-back staff. “With the six guys who are left, it’s going to be a real nightmare for me to figure out how we’re going to operate.”
Citing the city’s money problems, Mayor Ed Fike said council had no choice
“If the numbers aren’t there, I don’t know the answer,” Fike said. “I know what you’re up against. It’s a horrible situation.”
In addition to the layoffs, Fike said the budget includes a wage freeze for all employees not covered by a labor agreement.
Much of the city’s fiscal woes originated with poor accounting practices and questionable transfers under prior administrations, according to two certified public accountants who addressed council yesterday.
James A. Dinsmore and Clayton E. Gregg IV of McClure & Wolf of Uniontown said their audit of the city’s 2007 finances uncovered numerous accounting problems that contributed to the city’s fiscal woes.
Chief among the problems, they said, was a prior administration’s practice of using money from the city’s sanitation and library funds to cover general fund debts. Dinsmore said the practice apparently went unchecked for years, culminating in 2007 when there wasn’t enough cash in the sanitation fund to cover a check written for the general fund.
“When you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, Peter runs out of money and Paul has a problem,” Dinsmore said. “That’s what happened at the end of 2007. Peter didn’t have any money.”
Gregg described numerous “significant deficiencies” with the 2007 audit, including missing invoices for $53,000 worth of expenses, mismanaged use of gas cards for city vehicles, and nonexistent oversight for collection of parking meter revenues.
Marshall said some of the deficiencies uncovered in the audit have been referred to state police and the state attorney general’s office for investigation. Dinsmore said the current administration has taken steps to fix the problems.
Copyright 2009 Tribune-Review