Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown presented a $54.4 million balanced budget for 2022 during a brief address Friday at City Hall. The budget includes $1.8 million of American Rescue Plan funds as revenues and does not raise property taxes.
                                 Jerry Lynott | Times Leader

Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown presented a $54.4 million balanced budget for 2022 during a brief address Friday at City Hall. The budget includes $1.8 million of American Rescue Plan funds as revenues and does not raise property taxes.

Jerry Lynott | Times Leader

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WILKES-BARRE — With the help of $1.8 million in federal funds Mayor George Brown maintained the city’s millage rate and balanced his 2022 budget.

Brown unveiled his $54.4 million general fund budget Friday during a brief presentation at City Hall attended by City Council and department heads. It’s an increase of $1.1 million from the current $53.2 million budget.

Before the end of the year Council will schedule a public hearing and vote on the spending plan Brown wants to use to operate the largest city in Luzerne County.

The $1.8 million in American Rescue Plan funds, a portion of the $37.1 million awarded to the city this year under a massive COVID-19 recovery aid package signed into law by President Joe Biden, delivered much needed assistance — but with strings attached, and not for the long term.

The American Rescue Plan funds can’t be used to shore up underfunded pension plans or reduce taxes.

“The financial assistance provided under this initiative will give us the short-term flexibility we need to continue moving the city forward while not adding to the financial pressures that our taxpayers already face,” Brown said in his prepared address.

As his four-year term approached the halfway mark, Brown reiterated the commitment of his to operate the city on sound fiscal policies in order to deliver high-quality services to residents and businesses.

“We have made it a point to focus on areas such as pensions, healthcare and various operational costs to help limit the burden that our taxpayers are saddled by,” Brown said.

Council members for the most part said they needed time to review the budget before commenting.

Councilman Bill Barrett said his preliminary reaction was favorable.

“The city’s doing well we can cut costs,” added Councilman Mike Belusko.

The sewer maintenance and recycling fees, subjects of contention between Brown and Council in this year’s budget, will go back to $50 with Council’s approval. Brown’s proposal to double them to $100 met with opposition from Council, leading him to raise the fees to $75.

Pension costs, aided by an expected debt transaction that will reduce the Minimum Municipal Obligations to the five plans, are budgeted to drop by $873,093 next year and result in millions of dollars in savings in the future, Brown noted.

“Taking a hard look at our health benefits has allowed us to reduce our 2022 healthcare costs by approximately $500,000,” Brown said.

Savings of $50,000 will be realized by a change in the city’s life insurance carrier. The switch to dual stream recycling from single stream adds further savings. Tipping fees for recycling are budgeted to drop by $175,000 to $75,000. But the landfill tipping fee for garbage increases to $550,000 from $475,000, erasing some of the recycling savings.

The city’s property tax will remain at 141.33 mills. Unlike every other municipality in Luzerne County, Wilkes-Barre uses its own assessments rather than the county’s values.

Property tax revenues are budgeted at $11.4 million, unchanged from this year. The 3% Earned Income Tax also is unchanged and budgeted to bring in $15 million in revenues, a $1 million increase from 2021.

Business taxes are expected to nearly double in 2022 to $1.9 million. The budget listed increases in the professional business tax to $600,000 from $300,000 and $1.3 million mercantile business tax, up from $675,000 this year.

Overall tax revenues for 2022 total $32.9 million, an increase by $2.4 million in a year over year comparison of budgets. Taxes account for 60.5 % of the budget.

Brown again included permit fees for three major construction projects yet to begin among the budgeted revenues. However, the total was lowered to $2 million from $3.1 million.

The hotels on South Main Street and the former Hotel Sterling site and the new Luzerne County Transportation Authority transit facility along South Wilkes-Barre Boulevard “are going to be going in 2022,” Brown said.

Brown, who had been critical of his predecessor Tony George including the permit fees in his final budget for 2020, defended his reliance on the fees to balance his 2022 budget.

“First of all I don’t think it’s correct to compare Mayor George’s budget and ours. He didn’t face a pandemic. He didn’t face the fact that revenues were affected in a negative way. He also didn’t have this situation where we have projects that are just waiting to have materials delivered to their sites so they can start construction,” Brown said.

On the expense side, salaries and benefits for the 273-member city workforce and retirees total $37.6 million or 69.2% of the 2022 budget. Salaries increase by $969,650 to $20.6 million in 2022, while benefits, including pensions, see a drop of $968,043 to $17 million.

Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.