Unveiled last week, the preliminary 2027 budget remains a work in progress<\/a> but currently carries a roughly $4 million deficit that county Chief Financial Officer David Bulzoni said will be difficult to eliminate without raising property taxes. The draft budget does not include a tax increase, and Commissioners Thom Welby and Chris Chermak recently said they won\u2019t approve a hike and further burden taxpayers after 2025\u2019s increase of nearly 33%.<\/p>\nGaughan hopes to avoid a tax increase too, but said Wednesday that objective \u201cneeds to be supported by a credible, sustainable financial plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why he requested the comprehensive budget review by PFM Group Consulting LLC, the firm the county engaged in 2024 amid a pronounced fiscal crisis marked by a massive structural budget deficit and other challenges. PFM\u2019s work informed a number of sometimes painful yet arguably unavoidable steps county officials took in recent years to right the fiscal ship, including the precipitous 2025 tax hike that helped close the structural gap between budgeted revenues and expenditures.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s a gap that\u2019s reemerged as annual expenditure growth driven by increasing healthcare and pension costs, inflation and other factors continues to outpace growth in county revenues. Bulzoni said as much last week, noting budgeted expenses in the draft 2027 spending plan grew by more than $9.2 million compared to the county\u2019s 2026 budget, an increase of 5.1%, while revenue from property taxes, the county\u2019s largest recurring revenue source, is projected to increase by just $267,324, or 0.26%.<\/p>\n
Officials were able to shrink the preliminary deficit to about $4 million from what was originally an almost $9 million projected shortfall through cuts and the factoring in of several nonrecurring revenue sources. And while they\u2019re confident they\u2019ll be able to shrink it further in the coming weeks, failure to bolster revenues through a tax increase or other means won\u2019t solve the underlying structural deficit problem likely to compound in future years if unaddressed.<\/p>\n
In the multiyear financial management plan it crafted for the county, PFM recommended commissioners consider regular, incremental tax increases to keep pace with expenditure growth. Bulzoni echoed that recommendation last week, warning the county\u2019s 2028 budget \u201cwill also arrive with a built-in deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gaughan said Wednesday he recently asked PFM a \u201cvery straightforward question: Does this budget keep Lackawanna County on the path of long-term financial stability, or are we beginning to drift back toward the problems of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
He specifically wants PFM to evaluate whether and to what extent the draft budget aligns with the county\u2019s longer-range financial management plan and whether the budget\u2019s financial assumptions are sustainable. He also asked the firm to examine the county\u2019s use of one-time revenue sources, review areas where county operating costs significantly escalated, \u201cidentify realistic opportunities to control spending without compromising essential county services\u201d and provide updated financial projections for 2028 and 2029, \u201cincluding what our anticipated deficits would look like if all things remain equal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Work on the preliminary budget will continue prior to final passage later this year, and anything PFM provides could inform future revisions and adjustments.<\/p>\n
Chermak said officials are \u201clooking at everything\u201d as they work to further curtail expenses and close the deficit gap, with Welby echoing a similar sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of work that our team \u2026 has been doing, as well as our departments, to come back to us with some more modifications that will hopefully eliminate that deficit or bring it down to a manageable number,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of work that has to be done with that yet, and there\u2019s a lot of work that will be done with that as we move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Welby also encouraged residents to provide input at any of four public budget hearings the county will hold starting next week. The first hearing will take place Tuesday at the South Abington Twp. Municipal Building, 104 Shady Lane Road, beginning at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n
Subsequent hearings are scheduled for Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 at the Dickson City and Spring Brook Twp. municipal buildings, respectively, with both beginning at 10 a.m. The final hearing will be held Nov. 9 in the fifth-floor conference room of the county government center in downtown Scranton, also beginning at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n
Gaughan said he\u2019ll carefully review any budget analysis PFM provides and share relevant information with the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal is \u2026 to make sure decisions being made are based on sound financial analysis, accurate projections and a clear understanding of their long-term consequences,\u201d he said. \u201cBalancing the 2027 budget is one very important responsibility. Making sure that budget doesn\u2019t create a larger problem in 2028 or 2029 is just as important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON \u2014 Lackawanna County Commissioner Bill Gaughan asked the county\u2019s financial consultants\u00a0to review its roughly $190 million preliminary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-311296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311296","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=311296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}