Best bureaucracies

Local government offices are huge bureaucracies in large cities, but if one lives but in many small boroughs and townships the bureaucracy can be one person.

Karen Best is a one-woman bureaucracy for one borough and two townships in Clarion County, serving as the secretary for Licking and Piney townships and Foxburg Borough.

“They don’t get much smaller than the ones I work for,” she said.

Best, since 2016, has been borough secretary at Foxburg, which, according to the 2010 census, has a population of 152.

The borough has a seven-member council and a mayor.

“It is a challenge for them and other small boroughs to fill those seats,” Best said. “They are all volunteers.”

Winter, in particular, presents a big challenge for Foxburg, as the borough doesn’t have a street department and does not own snow removal equipment. “You are at the mercy of anyone who will bid for snow removal,” Best said. “We are paying $115 an hour plus the cost of anti-skid.”

That winter maintenance cost, she said, could take up to half of the borough’s annual liquid fuels budget. That money comes from the liquid fuel tax, which is collected by the state on each gallon of gasoline or diesel fuel sold in the state. The money is returned to municipalities, and the amount received is based on the miles of road in each township, borough or county.

Foxburg has only 2 miles of reimbursable roads.

“We only get $10,000 or $11,000 a year,” Best said.

Foxburg, Rimersburg and Callensburg are the only three municipalities in the county that are low to moderate income (LMI) eligible for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.

“In 2017, we got some money for a paving project and in 2018 the water authority got a grant for repairing some lines,” Best said.

Getting the money was only part of the struggle.

“Here we are in 2021, still trying to figure it out,” she said. “The project required an engineer, and with our tiny income we couldn’t hire an engineer.” Foxburg reached out to Engineers Without Borders in Denver.

“They hooked us up with an associate and a team of Pitt engineering students who are donating their time,” Best said. “The certified engineers will sign anything that is required.

“There is also a lot of red tape that goes along with CDBG. It can be very frustrating getting things done.”

Part of that red tape is an income survey that seeks proof that borough residents fit the income profile.

“We went house-to-house to do the survey,” Best said.

Other revenue comes from real estate tax and an earned income tax.

“The wage tax generates the most money for the borough,” she said.

Foxburg relies on Parker Volunteer Fire Department and Pennsylvania State Police for emergency needs and protection.

“We did have a fire department at one time, but no longer,” Best said. “Instead, the old fire hall has been renovated to house the borough office. We put a lot of elbow grease into that building.

“We fixed up one room in the old fire hall so we have a nice little place to have a meeting. That was until COVID hit, and now we Zoom. We now have a community center. We may even have voting there one day.”

Best said Foxburg gained ganied national attention when the producer of the TV show “The Rookie” called her.

“They said the star of the show, Nathan Fillion, was going to be from Foxburg, Pennsylvania,” she said. “They were asking me what kind of uniforms the police officers wore in Foxburg. I had to tell them we didn’t even have a police force in Foxburg.

“In the first episode, he talks about coming from Foxburg PA. I don’t think they realized how small Foxburg was. They just thought it was a cool name. If he ever visits, he is coming to have a big surprise.”

Licking, Piney townships

Best, a resident of Licking Township, has been secretary of that community for 22 years, and this year will mark her 15th year in the same position for Piney Township.

“I am the person who everyone turns to when they have questions,” she said. “I take all the phone calls, do all the payroll, all of the reports, which are just crazy in January.”

However, she said, “I do enjoy it.”

The three supervisors in both of those townships are elected and are on the payroll.

“The supervisors are the laborers as well,” Best said. “They also do the snow removal.

“These are guys who have other jobs and are expected to go out and plow snow in the middle of the night. It is difficult to find a part-time person willing to do that. We do not have a laborer in either township. We don’t have the funds for it.”

Both Licking and Piney townships, unlike Foxburg, maintain the roads and own road equipment. The townships use smaller vehicles for snow removal so that a commercial driver’s license is not required.

Each township receives liquid fuels money.

“That money can be spent on roads, snow removal, equipment and $1,000 can be spent on a computer. It cannot be spent on anything else,” Best said.

The townships receive funds from the real estate tax, earned income and the local services tax. According to Best, the money the townships get from those goes into the general fund.

She said the biggest problem the townships face are unfunded state mandates. “Trying to keep up with flood plain management, stormwater management and the uniform building code (UCC) stuff is a challenge,” Best said.

“In a community where you have many agriculturally oriented residents, moving in a building can be whipped up in a day … often they don’t know they need a building permit or that they need to comply with the UCC.

“Even an agricultural exemption requires a stormwater management plan. Assessments can be a big problem.”

A saving grace is the townships have roads in the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Dirt and Gravel Roads programs.

“Licking got a $36,000 grant in 2020 and Piney got a $112,000 grant in 2019,” Best said. “This is for back roads that are not traveled that much. There are some grant opportunities, but not for equipment.”

And, for Best, finding those opportunities are all in a day’s work -times three.