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Police services are expensive.
And we believe a vast majority of people -- taxpayers -- understand that.
So we ask city taxpayers -- property owners and business owners: Are you willing to have your tax dollars invested in strong police services, knowing your taxes will go up as costs rise?
That's really the big question in the City of Lock Haven as City Council looks ahead at expenses while negotiating a new labor contract with the police union.
This is an emotional debate, for sure.
Police protection is highly valued, especially by local businesses, as evident of the strong turnout and discussion at this past week's council meeting.
Recruiting police officers and maintaining manpower strength is a huge challenge these days.
At a time when the cost of living -- and the cost for governments to operate -- has increased rather dramatically.
An arbiter will apparently decide police pay rates, pension contributions and health-care premiums as negotiations between the city and police union have hit a wall.
We're told the arbiter's findings will be "binding."
That will then put City Council in the position of deciding whether to cut police coverage from 24 hours to 20 hours a day as they try to prevent a property tax hike next year while juggling huge costs associated with the city's stormwater system and fighting an engineering firm in court over problems at the sewage treatment plant.
The city has a point in evaluating police costs, which come in over $1.8 million annually for a 12-member force. Council is looking at 2022 statistics that show city police, with some assistance from state police, responded to an average of 16 calls per month between the third-shift hours of 3 a.m. to 7 a.m.
That's not a lot of activity folks -- thankfully.
But in our view, reducing city police coverage is not the answer. The force is essentially down two officers already.
If anything the city should -- and has discussed --providing shared and subsidized police services to some surrounding municipalities, too.
As for cutting costs, we don't pretend to know all of the financial pressures the city faces, including federal and state-mandated services it must provide.
But any future "growth" of city government should be put off --delayed.
By growth we mean investment in new buildings and equipment --unless absolutely necessary.
Further, the city must continue to try to address the issue of tax-exempt properties.
There are a ton of such properties--too many for the city to maintain current services without gaining some additional tax revenue.
Current estimates show there is $2.7 million in "taxable real estate" in the city owned by "tax exempt" institutions--the university, its foundation, churches, nonprofit medical facilities, nonprofit housing, etc. The city only receives just over $67,600 payments in lieu of taxes from those tax exempt properties.
Moreover, what other services can be shared?
Why can't municipalities get together in this county--led by the county--to explore more ways to share services, thus spreading the financial burden among more people and theoretically reducing costs?
No easy solutions, for sure.
But critical public services should not be compromised.