LOCK HAVEN - Pennsylvania will have a new governor in January, and the League of Cities and Municipalities says it will be ready for changes.
A change in taxation, for one, is long overdue, the League insists.
The organization representing numerous communities in Pennsylvania has formed a new Core Communities in Crisis Task Force. Its 29 members met for the first time last week, in Pittsburgh, and have started designing a new business model for local governments.
Lock Haven Mayor Richard P. Vilello Jr. serves on the task force. The Aug. 23 meeting focused on identifying problems, he reported. Solutions will be discussed at the next session, to be held Sept. 16 in State College, he said, and on Oct. 14 in Reading, the task force will create a legislative package addressing them.
Both gubernatorial candidates will see the package this fall, Vilello said, as their campaigns start moving into high gear.
And, armed with this package, the PLCM will hit the ground running when the new state administration and Legislature gather in 2011.
Vilello is working on a task force division that focuses on "Powers and Limitations of Local Governments." He is looking at cities, boroughs and townships - all the various forms of municipal government in Pennsylvania (not including school districts or counties) - and how they do what they do.
"It's not to say we have to throw out the form of government we're under," he said. "We have to find a way to fund local government services that doesn't rely on real estate taxes."
The system is broken, according to PLCM.
The limited type of taxes local governments may levy is one of the main problems the task force has identified, Vilello said.
"We are dealing with a system set up in the 1700s and 1800s and trying to face modern-day problems," he said.
"Lock Haven is 46 percent non-taxable," he said, referring to properties that are exempt from real estate taxes.
"What we're saying is we need to find a new or different way to raise revenues that does not rely on real estate taxes," he added, "because people who pay real estate taxes are getting hammered."
The task force is well named, the mayor said.
"Core Communities" refers to anchor towns that are centers of employment, social services, cultural and civic activity. The "Crisis" they face is real, Vilello said.
Nineteen Pennsylvania municipalities are in real financial hot water, a fate that looms over most towns, according to Vilello.
"The way local government works, we're all on the same train," he said.
These 19 communities are officially "financially distressed" under Act 47, the Municipalities Financial Recovery Act. The state offers an Early Intervention Program to help other towns develop financial plans before they reach "distressed" status, and more than 50 municipalities are in that program, according to PLCM.
"People think I'm exaggerating when I say we can't keep doing business like we've been doing," Vilello said. "Every year more properties come off the tax rolls. Everybody says you should run a government like a business - this business model doesn't work anymore."
Other task force members are focusing on "Intergovernmental Relationships," "Personnel Management" and "Financial Implications."
The costs of providing services - many of them personnel expenses - have increased while the ability to levy taxes hasn't changed much in 50 years, according to PLCM. It hasn't changed enough, the League says, to allow local governments to gather the funds needed to pay for both services and pensions without having to levy exorbitant taxes.
Pension expenses have risen dramatically in recent years, and that is another area that needs reform, Vilello said.
Arbitration of police contracts is another major problem the task force pinpointed, he added. Police contracts automatically go to arbitration under Act 111 if they fail at the negotiating table.
"The arbitrators tend to split the baby in half," the mayor said. Decisions generally disappoint everybody, he said. Arbitrators also do not take into account the financial ability of the municipality to uphold its side of the resulting contract, the mayor added.
The League hasn't approached these problems with a task force like this before, Vilello said.
"There are some high expectations," he said, "But I think you also can get some reasonable reform.
"We need new laws so basically we can survive," he said.
Clifford E. "Kip" Allen, an Edinboro councilman and president of PLCM, chairs the task force, and William Hansell Jr., executive director emeritus of the International City/ County Management Association, is the facilitator.
Mayor Gabriel J. Campana of Williamsport and Mayor Elizabeth A. Goreham of State College both serve on it.
Other members are from the officially financially distressed communities of Farrell, Franklin, Pittsburgh, Reading and Scranton; and others are from Allentown, Altoona, Butler, Carbondale, Chambersburg, East Stroudsburg, Easton, Erie, Harrisburg, Kutztown, Lancaster, Philadelphia, St. Marys, Washington, West Chester, Wilkes-Barre and York.
The task force also receives input from technical advisors.
