Tentative Clarion Co. budget approved; taxes would stay same

Clarion County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved the county’s tentative 2020 budget.

The proposed spending plan of $19,985,950 doesn’t include a real estate tax increase. Taxes will remain at 22 mills for the fourth straight year.

Rose Logue, the county’s interim fiscal director, said the tentative budget includes three pass-through grants totaling $4,748,000. Those grants include the YMCA RACP, ($215,500), Clarion Healthcare RACP ($1,000,000) and Brady Tunnel ($3,543,000).

Logue said there were a number of factors that had an impact on the budget including health insurance premiums, the Children and Youth Services (CYS) match and employee wage increases. Those changes added $122,000 to the budget.

The revenue for 2020 is expected to increase by $116,047 stemming from an increase of the assessed value and tax claim revenue.

That leaves a shortfall of $431,392 in the 2020 budget. Logue said the balance would be taken from the unrestricted fund balance.

She said the 2020 budget still has more than $118,000 in contingency funding for “prudent” fiscal management.

Logue said the 2019 budget is expected to produce a surplus of about $400,000, which will increase the general fund balance.

“This is a combination of revenues coming in strong at around 99 percent of the budgeted revenues and expenses for the year at about 91 percent,” she said.

Logue said there were several factors contributing to the surplus: The contingency reserve hasn’t been utilized to this point, there were fewer homicide cases than expected, the county’s contribution to the Clarion County Retirement Account was lower, and savings throughout all of the budgeted items.

“We began working on this budget in July,” said Commissioner Ed Heasley. “We appreciate the efforts of the row officers and department heads in keeping our expenses in line,” he added.

The tentative budget will be posted on the county’s website.

The budget will be adopted at the Dec. 26 commissioners meeting.

Voting machine questions

In other business at Tuesday’s commissioners meeting, a county resident had questions, but received few answers, about a new voting system for the county.

All counties in Pennsylvania are required to have in place a state approved voting system in time for the 2020 primary election. Although surrounding counties have made the change, Clarion has not.

Janice Horn of Clarion asked several questions about the selection process, the transparency of the process and the companies providing the machines.

She noted that in several counties gifts had been given by the companies to influence the decision of county commissioners.

She requested a public viewing of the proposed systems prior to the selection of a new vendor.

The new system will provide a paper trail. Voters will cast their ballot on a paper and the voters will be tabulated at the precinct.

A module containing the vote tally will be transported to the county’s administration building in Clarion, where it will be entered into a central system.

There are 40 precincts in Clarion County requiring 130 voting machines. Purchase of the new voting machines has been entered as a capital expense in the 2020 budget.

One issue that has apparently been resolved is the funding for the new system. Commissioner Wayne Brosius said the state would fund 60 percent of the cost.

“We cannot move on that until the final vote count is completed,” Commissioner Ted Tharan said.

The commissioners were candidates this year and were not permitted to sit on the county’s election board. They will resume that position when the count is completed.

“We will be making a decision soon,” said Brosius.