SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 During Wednesday\u2019s Lackawanna County Commissioners meeting, leaders were expected to vote on next year\u2019s budget. They unanimously decided to table the vote for the budget, that does not increase taxes, due to unknown electricity costs.<\/p>\n
This comes as the county continues to move into its first property tax reassessment since 1968.<\/p>\n
Under state law, tax revenue after a reassessment must be revenue neutral, meaning the county must collect the same amount it did the year before. Commissioners cannot raise taxes in a reassessment year.<\/p>\n
But the budget wasn\u2019t delayed because of taxes.<\/p>\n
Instead, commissioners say they need one more piece of information: the actual cost of electricity the county will be paying in 2026.<\/p>\n
The county\u2019s long-term energy contracts with Constellation Energy have started to expire, spanning 37 accounts. And the lowest proposal they\u2019ve received so far reflects a 42% increase in electricity costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would probably deplete that to some extent, but we really wanted to try and quantify it much more closely, so we know what the number is. It\u2019s my recommendation that we defer the approval until we have a number we can plug into the budget,” said David Bulzoni, Chief Financial Officer.<\/p>\n
Commissioners say they don\u2019t want to finalize spending until they see the solid estimate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a little crazy here with reassessment and new commissioners in and out and with the energy issue. They\u2019re waiting for our contracts, so we know exactly where we are. Plus, we\u2019re waiting for the savings from our ESCO project, the energy savings project that we\u2019ve done,” said Commissioner Chris Chermak.<\/p>\n
Newly sworn-in Commissioner Thom Welby says he also wants more time to dig into the numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate a little bit more time to look into the budget and go deeper than I have been able to, and that\u2019s appreciated as well,” said Welby.<\/p>\n
Bulzoni also noted the significant increase in electricity proposals doesn\u2019t affect taxpayers directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lowest cost proposal represents a 42% increase in electricity costs. As was pointed out by the chief of staff, it doesn\u2019t affect the millage, we\u2019re not looking at an increase in millage to cover that cost,” said Bulzoni.<\/p>\n
Commissioners say they hope to revisit the budget at their next meeting on December 17th with a clearer idea of the electricity estimate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 During Wednesday\u2019s Lackawanna County Commissioners meeting, leaders were expected to vote on next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-51584","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\/51584","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=51584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}