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By DAVID J. RALIS; Times Leader Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 23, 1998 Page: 1A
WILKES-BARRE- Each year, Luzerne County administrators spend months
discussing the next year’s budget in secret, and the public has no say until
the spending plan is unveiled by the county commissioners.
Those secret budget talks are over, county officials said Tuesday.
The commissioners will announce at a special 10 a.m. meeting today that
their budget-making process will be completely open to the public next year.
They also will vote to adopt the 1999 budget, the last plan to be developed
behind closed doors.
As part of the new procedure, all county department heads will be required
to explain publicly why they need to make large purchases or hire more staff.
For 15 years, Chief Clerk/Administrator Gene Klein has been the only one to
see the raw budget numbers the department heads submit. He then meets with
each department head to cut wish-list items from their requests. What remains
is pulled together into budgets that increase annually.
Six days full of hearings have been set for next November. Two of the
sessions will go as late as 8 p.m. A taxpayer’s group requested night meetings
after only four residents showed up to the county’s sole budget hearing last
week.
“That’s what we’ve been looking for,” Mary Kamp, treasurer of the Luzerne
County Coalition of Taxpayers, said Tuesday. “I think it’s great that we’re
seeing a little change in the process.”
County spokesman Jim Torbik said the commissioners are responding to
requests from the public to open the hearings to allow for more input.
But Kamp, of South Wilkes-Barre, couldn’t help but notice the change will
happen in a year when the commissioners must stand for re-election. “That
appears to have an impact on everything they do right now,” she said.
Torbik said politics didn’t play a factor in the commissioners’ decision to
change. “They want to do it. They’re delighted that the procedural hurdles
have been worked out.”
A fully public process means the department heads must take more time
preparing their budget requests, all county officials must coordinate their
schedules and more manpower must be devoted to developing the budget, Torbik
said.
The commissioners told Kamp and three other residents they liked the idea
last week during the county’s budget meeting. To do it, though, they said they
would need to hire someone to help Klein put together the 2000 budget.
On Tuesday, Klein said a salary for a new budget administrator would not be
included in the 1999 spending plan and one would not be hired. But the
commissioners agreed to hold all budget hearings in public after he told them
he could handle the extra work.
“I do it anyway,” he said. “The only difference is there will be more eyes
watching.”
That’s the way the budget is done in most of the 11 counties with a
population as large as Luzerne County, a recent survey by The Times Leader
found.
The commissioners started holding one special public meeting to