North Versailles commissioners focus on financial woes
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The commissioners in North Versailles voted this month to adopt a 2010 budget, approving $6.1 million in expenditures and raising taxes by a half-mill.
But in this debt-ridden township, officials are still scrambling to get a grasp on their finances, and the situation is dire.
"The township's in a bad place," said Commissioner George Beswick, who cast the lone dissenting vote at a Feb. 4 budget meeting, against six other commissioners.
"But no one was aware of this," said newly elected Commissioner Art Marra, chairman of the financial committee.
While several commissioners interviewed this week disagreed on the cause of the township's woes - in some cases blaming one another - they agreed that something has to change.
Mr. Beswick and Commissioner Dennis Dull said Tuesday that they had heard that their application for a $700,000 tax anticipation loan might be denied. Commissioners' President Ruth Grimes, however, said that was not the case.
"If that happens, the township will virtually have to shut down," Mr. Dull said.
Mr. Beswick said he was concerned that the municipality is digging itself into a hole.
"If they follow that budget, by the end of the year, we're going to have some major problems," he said.
Mr. Marra said he was still trying to figure out the extent of the township's debts.
"I've been scrutinizing everything from the past," he said. "The audits don't look so good over the past couple of years. I'm finding a lot more debt than what they were actually reporting."
According to budget documents, North Versailles started the year with a $300,000 deficit from 2009.
But Mr. Dull said he did not know whether that amount was correct.
"We're just giving numbers," he said. "We don't know if that's an exact number or not. It could be $100,000, it could be $1 million. We don't know."
Mr. Marra said the deficit did not begin to approximate past debts, which are listed on the budget as dating back to the 1990s.
"We still don't have a good accounting of everything," Ms. Grimes said.
The budget was initially approved in December, but was reopened with the election of new commissioners.
At the time, Ms. Grimes said she planned to go through the budget line by line, but that little was changed in February's version.
"There's no wiggle room whatsoever, and that's the problem," she said.
The new budget lists expenditures as $6,146,008 and revenue as $6,148,926.
One of the township's largest expenses is listed as debt service, which represents more than 20 percent of the budget. Debt service is topped only by expenses for the police department, which amount to about $1.7 million.
First Published February 18, 2010 12:00 am
