Friday, April 17, 2009

Luzerne County finances

According to the story in the TL today Luzerne county is less messed up this year than in years past. The county has 'only' has to borrow $17.9 million to make the books balance in 2009. I won't be too hard on the Commissioners about this because it was part of this year's budget. At least they were up front about it. The county took in $1.6 million less than anticipated but spent $5.4 million less than they expected in the first 3 months of 2009. Property tax revenues are up and the the cost of locking up juvenile offenders is down. We we all know why property tax revenue increased (reassessment) and spending on juvenile placements is down (Juvie Brothers).

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's why things are good: The Yonk's cousin is keeping an eye on the books!

Anonymous said...

"Only has to borrow $17.9m?" and you call this 'less messsed up'? Banks won't lend to the county now. I guess we're going to have to wait for hussein obama to speed up the printing presses and provide us with more money that we don't have.

Am I missing something?

Ed from Dallas said...

I see Walter Griffith was at the Commissioners work session on Thursday with a great idea to have the County go and look at the people that are abusing the KOZ Zones to raise some revenue for the County, instead of raising our taxes or borrowing more money from the bonds and banks. Walter said that he thinks the KOZ zone is a great idea to help with the blighted property issue but people like Mericle Realty are using to safe guard their investments without paying their fair share of property taxes that can help the County Revenue shortfall.
I hope this guy gets elected to Controller, he has a zeal to think of ideas and solutions instead of always going to the taxpayers for money. How refreshing.

Anonymous said...

Ed from Dallas is also known as Walter Griffith. Walter your idea has been brought up in the past and is did not go anywhere. Apparently you don't understand KOZ. KOZ brings jobs and people that the county will profit from. Good thinking. Your zeal of new ideas and solutions are late.

Walter Griffith said...

Dear Anonymous 6:40
Please note that I am not Ed from Dallas. I have posted on this site in the past and sign my comments. Please be sure you are certain of your facts before you make your ANONYMOUS comments. Maybe this was Ed Chesnovitch that wrote the comment ? He was at the meeting as well.
Ed stated correctly that the KOZ is a good idea if it is not abused, but like most GOOD PROGRAMS sometimes they are abused and that was my comment and it is something that the commissioners should look into for the revenue.

Anonymous said...

Walter, aka Ed you want me to vote for you for controller and you can not even copy the time right, it was 6:04 not 6:40. I am sure Ed is your friend and he would not mind you using his name to blog comments to make you sound great. I thought you were fighting for the tax payers. The county has to borrow 17.9 million. With all of your talk nothing is changing or getting worse and you want to be controller.