SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Scranton recently submitted its annual capital budget for 2027. Mayor Paige Cognetti says it\u2019s crucial to keeping city-wide improvements rolling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done a tremendous amount of work over the years to go from what was always kind of a wish list,” said Mayor Cognetti. “Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if we could, you know, revitalize the fleet of fire trucks or make sure that we have enough patrol cars and they\u2019re getting updated every, you know, every few years. The Capital budget now in the city of Scranton is a budget that you can look at and you can see how we are going to, how we plan to fund these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $41 million budget sees investments in EMS, parks, and maintenance. Roughly two-thirds going to public works projects, like over $5 million for the Keyser Valley Stormwater project and over $8.5 million for Meadow Brook Flood Protection.<\/p>\n
With funding from the American Rescue plan expiring soon, this budget is aimed at pivoting to alternative sources to continue future project development.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly work intensive, funding intensive to do all of this,” continued Mayor Cognetti. “And it can\u2019t just stop with the rescue plan; we know that the storms won\u2019t stop happening. So the capital budget, we\u2019ve been able to show how we could continue to fund not just Keizer Valley, but you know, as time goes on, make sure that stormwater is a core part of the capital budget, along with the fleet of vehicles, along with maintaining and upgrading city parks and the like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another new addition, three ambulances to be used by a future city-wide EMS response service that will serve as a bedrock for future city ambulance, EMS, and police investments. They will be the first city-run ambulances in decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s an essential service that the city needs to be able to provide,” said Scranton Fire Chief John Judge, who approved of the addition. “For close to 40 years now, they\u2019ve been out of the business, and EMS providers have covered that gap. But for the city, it\u2019s about public health. It\u2019s about making sure that we can get the right resources to the right place in a timely manner to save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than half of the budget is being paid for via state funding, with millions more coming from federal grants, and dedicated transportation funds. The city is also using 1$2 million from its capital reserve and plans to borrow $7 million.<\/p>\n
Scranton\u2019s City Council will review the proposed budget in its first meeting back in September.<\/p>\n
If approved after multiple readings, it will go into effect on January 1st, 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Scranton recently submitted its annual capital budget for 2027. Mayor Paige Cognetti says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-267939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}