LOCK HAVEN — As it continues to review its proposed 2025 budget, Lock Haven City Council heard from multiple department heads regarding the past year and what goals are being set for the coming one.

Council will consider fully adopting its 2025 budget, which is expected to total about $13,659,082 in its major funds, during its meeting on Monday, Dec. 16, without a tax increase.

The millage rate, which has been adjusted as the city works towards a single-rate system, is proposed at 20.0 mills for General Purpose (land) and 9.8 mills for General Purpose (building/improvements).

Monday’s meeting centered around public safety and included updates from the police and fire departments.

POLICE DEPARTMENT

Prior to hearing from Chief Matthew Rickard, council received an overview of the police and parking budget that was proposed for 2025.

According to City Manager Greg Wilson, the budget — which is expected to be $1,972,497 in 2025 — is broken down into the following:

— 85 percent of the funding is for wages and benefits for police officers. The city employs, at a full complement, 12 uniformed and four non-uniformed officers under Rickard’s direction.

— 11 percent for contractual and other obligations.

— 4 percent, or $78,000, for operations, which Wilson also described as discretionary funding.

“There, as always, isn’t a lot of wiggle room,” Wilson said of the budget. “The police department is 33 cents of every dollar you pay in taxes.”

During his presentation, Rickard spoke about new initiatives that were kickstarted in 2024, which would carry over into 2025.

The first of which was a $14,000 Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) grant to assist in the hiring of two officers.

“We were having a terrible time trying to find good applicants to hire. The first round we had three applicants and of those three one did not show up; one did not pass the PD test; and one wasn’t qualified to be hired,” Rickard said.

The grant, which was acquired with assistance from City Planner Abbey Roberts, will assist in recruitment of quality officers for the city’s police force — which is currently not at full complement.

“We’re very excited about that. The application period ends Jan. 17. We will test on Jan. 25 and the academy will begin in May,” he said. “It’s a really good, positive thing for the department and the city.”

The police department, through a partnership with the Center for Community Resources’s co-responder initiative, which will see the department working with a recently hired social worker.

At a previous meeting, council elected to enter the program, which comes at no cost to the city and runs through 2026.

Rickard said the program will be extremely beneficial in helping to reduce the number of repeat incidents.

“The best part about the co-responder is that part of their job is to follow up,” he said.

Rickard explained that, when officers must assist in calls regarding mental health or admit a person to a hospital they are unable to do that.

“This will give the opportunity for a person to receive additional follow up and help from the co-responder,” he said. “I think that will reduce the rate of repeat calls we get to certain individuals who are in crisis.”

The Center recently completed the interview process, working collaboratively with the department, and agreed to hire an individual with the hopes — following onboard training — they will be on the road in a few weeks.

During the council’s questions, talks of parking meters took up a large portion of time.

Councilmember Jeff Brinker noted the 2024 budget discussion included talks about replacing the city’s aging parking meters. He asked where the department was in that line of planning.

“They’re antiques and it’s almost impossible to get parts,” Rickard said of the current meters. “The meter enforcement officers have been making do with what they have.”

Rickard said there are multiple companies out there that can offer kiosks for parking lots — which would be an alternative to meters.

“That’s kind of where my vision is, at least to begin with,” he said. “We’d have to come up with a plan for the downtown parking.”

Rickard said the department wasn’t in a position to dig into the meter issue in 2024 but noted it is on the table for 2025.

“City Manager Wilson and I did speak about it several times and in the coming year we’re going to get into exploring the costs. I’m going to try and prepare and wait for the right time to move ahead,” he said.

Councilmember Steve Stevenson noted the meters could be replaced slowly overtime with the kiosks or other methods instead of all at once.

Wilson noted in last year’s budget, it was estimated to cost $30,000 to replace a block of parking meters with updated machines which could accept credit and debit cards.

FIRE DEPARTMENT

Before Lock Haven Fire Department’s Chief Tyler Wooding’s presentation, Wilson provided a breakdown of the fire department’s fund.

According to the proposed budget, $557,298 is expected to be used from the city’s General Fund for the fire department.

According to Wilson that funding is broken down into the following parts:

— 73 percent for wages.

— 14 percent for obligations.

— 0.25 percent for training and education. This, he said, is due to a large portion being covered by other entities.

— 12 percent, or $68,000, remains for operations.

According to Wooding, in 2024 the department was able to retain its Class 3 ISO certification, which he said was a major accomplishment.

“To put that in perspective, we share that Class 3 rating with only 3,000 other fire departments in the United States. There’s about 40,000 fire departments in the US,” he said. “For a small city like Lock Haven that’s a very good accomplishment.

Moving into its next evaluation in 2029, Wooding said the department hopes to move into Class 2.

Wooding broke down a few statistics from the last year including that 90 percent of structure fires within the city were confined to a room of origin; the department participated in 34 public education and outreach programs; and completed over 600 hours of training and education.

Looking at 2023 and 2024, Wooding noted the department saw an increase in maintenance costs.

“Two primary reasons are call volume and our aging fleet of apparatus,” he said.

The department is currently in the progress of applying for various grants and is also looking to downsize and adjust to accommodate multi-use vehicles in an effort to cut costs, he said.

Looking ahead, Wooding said he’d like to explore tapping into insurance reimbursements.

“When someone takes out a policy, money is set aside in that policy for emergency reimbursement,” he said. “The fire department hasn’t ever gone after that money.”

Wooding said, if council wished, he could look into this as another form of revenue.

“I can get with the fire advisory board and come up with a report and get that to you next month sometime,” he said.

Mayor Joel Long and Councilmember Barbara Masorti spoke in favor of at least exploring the option.

“It would be important for us to take a look at it,” Long said.

Masorti echoed these sentiments.

“I think you should present the information. If it’s something that doesn’t involve an extra cost to a taxpayer, and that money is left on the table — money that would have been available to our department at no extra cost to the homeowner — I think we should be looking at that,” she said.

Councilmember Steve Stevenson expressed uncertainty over the idea, noting taxpayers already fund the department.

“In my years here we always said we didn’t inquire about insurance for our residents in the city because they’re already paying for everything else,” he said. “I’m not sure if we should be tabbing their insurance companies.”

Stevenson noted he’d be more comfortable with looking at insurance companies for those outside of the area when LHFD responds to emergencies in other municipalities.

“The only way to know one way or another is to get more information,” Wilson noted.

Wooding agreed to speak with the fire advisory board and bring back more information at a future council meeting.