Fiscal crisis for Harrisburg City Council worsens

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[For the first time since adopting a very tight budget with a deficit of about $335,000, members of Harrisburg City Council, twice on Thursday evening, slammed into a financial brick wall with no way around or over it.

During the course of the meeting council learned employee health insurance this year will have a premium increase of $161,000.

No money has been set aside for such an increase.

Council learned the Police Department already is overspent in the repair of cruisers by $5,900 dollars and more needs to be appropriated for routine maintenance.

No department could find a surplus to send to the police.

Council was under the specter of police officers answering emergency calls driving backhoes when they voted, 3 to 2, not to appropriate another $10,000 for police repairs.

Favoring the appropriation were Mayor Valerie Rose Mitchell and Fire and Police Commissioner Clarence Rice. Voting in opposition were commissioners Linda Mitacek, John McPeek and Russell Duncan.

Discussions of the city's fiscal straits were long with no real answers, although former mayor and former city attorney Robert Wilson suggested two solutions: eliminate the position of mayor's assistant "and that would get you two new cars right away" and switching the police department back to eight-hour shifts instead of 12-hour duty times, which Wilson said would allow reduction of the force by two men at a savings of $152,333 in salaries each year. Uniform allowance and equipment would increase the savings by $13,269 a year, Wilson said.

During the discussion of funding money for police repairs, Rice raised the image of officers answering calls on other city equipment as one-by-one the city's aging fleet of cruisers breaks down.

"It's going to be very embarrassing to see one of our policemen borrow a backhoe to make a call," Rice said.

Police Chief Bob Smith described the city's fleet of cars as "total pieces of junk."

The most problematic cruisers have been the newer ones - Dodge Intrepid models - which have eaten away 80 percent of the city's repair budget, Smith said.

He told council the department is not making expensive repairs. Used motors and body parts from junkyards are the mainstay of the repair purchases.

"We are buying junk to fix our junk," he said. "Do you want us to stop answering calls? The cars could sit."

With the three Dodge vehicles proving to be expensive to keep running, "The good cars we've got are 12, 13, 14 and 15-years-old," Rice said.

Commissioners wrangled over possible solutions, the most prominent of which was halting officers driving cars home when off their shifts.

Smith pointed out doing that brings contractual difficulties; taking cars home was written into contracts when the city was financially stronger.

Smith also said driving the older cars 24 hours a day will only increase the repair costs and sideline more cars.

Rice argued strongly for an added appropriation.

"I just don't know where we can find it," McPeek, the finance commissioner, said.

"Every time I sit in these meetings, I see money flying out," Rice retorted. "If we had decent vehicles, we wouldn't have these problems. Our vehicles are in bad shape."

Rice questioned why council could not use $25,000 received from a sale of a lot to fund the cruiser repairs.

The money, he said, is going into the General Fund, why can't it be used.

The answer appeared to be caught in the fact the General Fund was appropriated by council, in a deficit position; incoming money is dropping into the debt chasm.

"The $10,000 (requested by Rice) should be used to reduce the deficit," City Treasurer Richard Harper said.

Harper also said buying new cars is not a good option, even if the purchases are on a delayed payment basis.

"The city doesn't have the money to buy a new car. What (you would be doing) is creating a problem for another council."

He told commissioners in an act carried over from the days of city riches, he paid $5,900 in excess of the line item in bills for cruiser repairs. At some point, he said, the police department needs to determine what transfers it can make to cover the cost.

That is a problem: Smith said there is no surplus within the department's budget.

And commissioner by commissioner, the same story emerged from each department.

"I need a tractor and a 'bush hog,'" Mitacek said. I need a dump truck with a snow plow, but that's $147,000.

"We can't print our own money; we are going to have to tighten our belts," she said.

"I don't want to raise taxes. I won't raise taxes."

Even within departments with an appropriation for new equipment, often the purchase has not happened.

Mitchell said money was appropriated for a sewer truck; council said no.

While there were no quick solutions, members of council - a body that has spent many months in various modes of feud - worked together in a strong debate of the future of finances.

"There are different ways to solve these problems, if we can work together as a council,"Mitacek said.

"We are in a financial crunch."

And complicating that crunch is a mistake made by the state. Harrisburg, through a mistake made by the state Department of Revenue, received $15,000 to $18,000 that rightfully belongs to Eldorado.

The state is holding back the amount from Harrisburg.

Big crunch

While finding $10,000 for cruiser repairs was a contentious matter, it was not the largest problem encountered by council.

The city has received it's rate increase for the coming year for city employee insurance. The bill is increased $161,080 above the current bill.

The total, as proposed by Blue Cross-Blue Shield, is $647,834 a year for the city's covered employees - an increase of nearly 33 percent.

The cost of coverage for an individual city employee will be $880 a month. It currently is $660.

The costly insurance also is a leftover from heady days of high wages within the area, a time when the city could not pay the wage but offered a low-deductible insurance plan.

About seven years ago, the city began to be pinched by the rates. To gain time to negotiate new contract language for insurance, the city entered into a partial self-insurance program.

Now, with only minor progress in new contract language, Council faces the dilemma of finding money for the hike.

Two immediate steps were taken.

First, McPeek came to the meeting armed with two insurance consultants and a rough quote from Health Alliance that would cut the insurance burden in half.

Secondly, city employees are being asked today to fill out applications so the city can rapidly start the process of getting quotes from other insurance companies.

Also under consideration is a stop-gap measure of increasing the city's potential liability on the self-insurance portion.