Trending
BELLEFONTE -- Bellefonte Borough's proposed 2024 no tax increase budget has been adopted by council.
This year the borough staff overcame challenges by using $30,000 of reserves from 2023 to balance the 2024 General Fund budget and to maintain the same level of services. There is a .05 mill increase proposed for Emergency Medical Services and the Fire Department Fund. There is a .50 mill increase proposed for the Street Lighting Fund.
During the work and business sessions on Monday night, there was a brief discussion about the additional cost of closed captioning for C-NET recordings.
At some point during the first quarter of 2024, C-NET will be initiating closed captioning programs online.
A cost estimate of $765 is based on the length of meetings in 2023 combined with the cost of $17 per hour; with Bellefonte Borough using approximately 45 hours of captioning annually.
Live streams of the council meetings are already closed-captioned, but with this service, C-NET will be able to offer more accurate captions for the videos.
With council's approval of the addition of closed captioning when it is available through C-NET there is no increase to the total 2024 budget of $14,661,165.
There were no further modifications made to the budget.
The budget was made available to the public from Dec. 8 through Dec. 18, 2023, and will be uploaded to bellefonte.net; there were no public comments at the meeting regarding the budget.
Borough Council President Doug Johnson gave a heartfelt farewell during their last meeting of 2023.
"It has been my privilege to be given the opportunity to be president of this council and work with each and every one of you folks at this table. Thanks for making my last meeting as council president so memorable. I'll always be grateful for your support. From day one, when I was elected to council, Mr. Holderman and Mr. Stewart took me under their wings. Even though I had the stupidest questions, they took the time to answer those questions for me. I appreciate their patience. Our work is not complete. We have many more projects to conquer. I can't thank the borough staff enough. When I walk into that office, as tough of a day as they may be having, they're always very generous and cheerful to anybody who comes into that office… The borough management has created this environment. Residents of Bellefonte should be awfully proud of that," said Johnson.
Johnson also mentioned that hosting a meeting in the building where the final meeting took place, at 301 N. Spring Street, had been a goal of his at the beginning of the year.
"I said to Mr. Stewart, I'm going to put the hammer down in the Armory Building before the end of the year. The whole staff at the borough building made this happen. I really appreciate that. Thanks to the entire borough staff it happened, and the contractor was so cooperative," said Johnson.
In other news:
-- Borough Offices will be closed on Monday, Dec. 25, and Tuesday, Dec. 26, for observance of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There will be no refuse collection on Monday or Tuesday. Refuse will be collected on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023.
-- Borough Offices will also be closed on Monday, Jan. 1, 2024, for New Year's Day. Refuse will not be collected on Monday. Refuse will be collected on Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024.