Meadville City Council members on Wednesday met to consider a brief agenda — one made even lighter than expected by the last-minute elimination of two items that had drawn most of the 10 members of the public in attendance.
The two items removed from the agenda still drew the extended ire of several audience members, but the real news of the night came in the form of a largely unremarked-upon agenda item and the budget books that council members received immediately after the meeting concluded.
The 106-page preliminary budget wastes no time getting to the big news: It is a balanced budget but — like a circus juggler maneuvering a unicycle along a tightrope — the balancing act is a precarious affair best suited for short distances.
Balancing the $11.5 million budget is achieved by combining $642,000 in pandemic relief funds that the city will not receive in the future with a 2-mill tax increase and cutting the city’s contribution to the Meadville Area Recreation Complex, which this year amounts to $125,000.
“Without these items,” City Manager Maryann Menanno notes in bold print just three paragraphs into the document, “the 2023 preliminary draft budget is out of balance by $995,118.”
Council expected to vote on a final version of the budget at its Dec. 7 meeting with final approval coming at the Dec. 21 meeting. Before then, a Nov. 9 study session will introduce to council members the “Balancing Act” software to be used in public information sessions that will allow taxpayers to try their own hands at finding a solution to the deficit facing the city. The public information sessions are scheduled for Nov. 15 from 6 to 8 p.m., Nov. 17 from 1 to 3 p.m., and Nov. 19 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Council will hold a regular meeting Nov. 16 and has tentatively scheduled a public budget session for that night as well.
Among items actually on the agenda Wednesday was a move to transfer approximately $3 million in city funds currently invested with local banks to Treasury bills in an effort to take advantage of higher interest rates currently available.
“The local banks are not able to keep up with the interest rates,” Finance Director Tim Groves told council.
The funds are currently earning about 1.75 percent interest, according to Groves, and the transfer would bring the interest rate up to approximately 3.5 percent. Over the course of the year, it could mean an additional $120,000 to $144,000 in revenue for the city.
A previously planned discussion of a draft version of the long-anticipated rental registration and inspection program was removed from the agenda prior to the meeting. Menanno told the Tribune on Friday that council would discuss the issue and an early version of the agenda posted to the city website Tuesday included a discussion of the proposal, but the item was absent from the final version of the agenda.
News that it wouldn’t be included did not reach many of the ten members of the public who attended the meeting, including Dan Pastore, candidate in the race to represent Pennsylvania’s 16th District in the U.S. House of Representatives. After the meeting Pastore said he had expected to see council vote on the much-discussed ordinance.
Almost immediately after council opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, Councilwoman Autumn Vogel moved to remove another item still on the agenda: a vote on a contract for an independent contractor whose duties would have involved a variety of social media-related areas. Council voted 4-0 to remove the item. Mayor Jaime Kinder was absent from the meeting.
The prospective contractor had in recent weeks been informally shadowing Kinder. The proposed contract would have paid the man $18 per hour.
Later in the meeting, Vogel addressed the removal of the vote on the contract.
“I didn’t feel ready to make that decision. That wasn’t something that we talked about. I don’t think we really had a clear sense of the role and the description,” Vogel said. “The budget is looming and it’s big and is that the right move?”
