SOUTH ABINGTON TOWNSHIP, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Lackawanna County residents had their first opportunity Tuesday night to weigh in on the county\u2019s proposed $190 million budget for 2027.<\/p>\n
The spending plan carries a projected $4 million deficit, down from an initial $8.9 million shortfall, with no proposed property tax increase despite rising healthcare, pension and insurance costs.<\/p>\n
Rising healthcare costs remain one of the county\u2019s biggest budget challenges.<\/p>\n
Chief Financial Officer David Bulzoni said those costs are projected to increase by nearly 15%, jumping from $32.6 million this year to more than $37 million next year.<\/p>\n
While county officials are exploring ways to reduce that expense, Bulzoni said finding savings won’t be easy as healthcare costs continue to climb.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealth care renewal comes in a 14.8% increase, which we are looking at reducing. For the 2026 renewal was at $32.6 million. The 2027 renewal is at $37.4 million, again 14.8%. That doesn’t come as a surprise to anybody in the room. Healthcare is expensive, it will continue to be expensive. The county is looking at ways to mitigate some of that increase. And we’re certainly working on some things to help reduce that cost. But it’s also not easy,\u201d said Bulzoni.<\/p>\n
Bulzoni also said property tax revenue plays a critical role in funding county operations and maintaining essential services. With expenses continuing to rise, he says balancing the 2027 budget while preserving those services remains a challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal estate taxes have a pretty significant impact on the operation of the county, and obviously on the ability of the county to maintain a level of service. Which the commissioners believe are important,\u201d said Bulzoni.<\/p>\n
During public comment, resident Amanda Sagona urged commissioners to take a closer look at past spending when finalizing the 2027 budget.<\/p>\n
She said county departments have consistently budgeted more money for training and travel than they’ve actually spent, with some travel budgets going unused for at least four years.<\/p>\n
Sagona believes adjusting those allocations to reflect actual spending could help reduce the county’s projected deficit.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne way to reduce the deficit is by aligning the budget with historical spending patterns. With the past three years for each line item and found that training budgets consistently outpace actuals in several departments actually have travel budgets. Thousands of dollars in travel budgets that are zero, every single year for the past four years at least, they\u2019ve been zero dollars have been spent out of these travel budgets,\u201d said Sagona.<\/p>\n
The next Lackawanna County 2027 budget hearing is scheduled for this Thursday at the Dickson City Municipal Building at 10 a.m. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH ABINGTON TOWNSHIP, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Lackawanna County residents had their first opportunity Tuesday night to weigh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-315755","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\/315755","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=315755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}