City Council

CITY OF MCKEESPORT WORKSHOP MEETNG WEDNESDAY 6:30 P.M. DECEMBER 7, 2022 Public Hearing regarding the Budget for 2023. Mayor Cherepko said first and foremost, for the most part there are not many changes from year to year. I will say that there’s a Budget, a balanced budget with no tax increase, no fee increase, nothing, we are holding the line on everything. The biggest unknown at the time which is going to be a hit on the budget but we did a lot, we increased the expense line item in the budget for this, is the garbage. Obviously, I don’t want to go into too many details with County, but for the sake of transparency, we did go out to bid; Council has a bid to approve this evening; the winning bid was Bigs Sanitation who did our garbage hauling prior to County. The cost of garbage has gone up drastically and we are looking at probably at least a 70% increase in the cost of garbage. We were paying around $80 a ton, $79.75 and I think it went up to $80 and odd change. The winning bid was $135 a ton. Now, keep in mind that we pay by the tonnage and when I say at least that percentage just using rough numbers I do believe Bigs will collect more garbage and pick up more garbage because we dealt with a service that was unacceptable, without question our residents deserve better. It was, without exaggerating I would probably say not a day went by in the office where a complaint of garbage did not come in and that’s over a three year period. There may have been one or two or maybe count on two hands in three years a day. I mean literally that’s how many complaints would come in. So, we were pretty much forced to go out to bid. I can’t go into details now, not because I don’t want to share, but because there’s going to be litigation with our former hauler. We will be suing and filing a lawsuit. We pretty much have expressed our difference in opinion with them and will be moving into litigation. So, I don’t want anyone to think there is something secretive of why I don’t want to talk about it, it’s just we can’t discuss litigation publicly. Once again it’s an issue we have to deal with. The ever increasing expenses and decreasing revenues. The fortunate part is I think our revenues have pretty much stayed the same or increased over the last couple of years. A lot of development, businesses, things like that, the tax base, earned income tax is up a little bit, but it’s not much to [1] cover deficits like that. We know, we have always had a deficit, that we’ve been trying to fix over time through attrition, a one time sale of assets and things like that, those are things we are still working on. This time next year, not getting a head of myself, but obviously I will be running again for re-election, and if the people in McKeesport so choose to have me as their Mayor for four more years, I can promise you we have a detailed plan for the next four years and I will get into that this time next year. Ideas we really believe can fix things. Things that have been out of our control and things that are still out of our control, to an extent that we believe we can collaborate and work together with some of the solutions we have. McKeesport Rising will continue in this Budget as well, a little slightly less, but we will continue to demo, we probably have roughly 250-300 homes that are already in the hands of contractors scheduled to come down. Obviously being that 2022 is almost over, you are basically saying that many homes will be coming down in 2023. It may leak over to 2024 because of the timeliness that our contractors have had over the last several years. I think it’s been extremely frustrating. I could tell you for this administration I am sure it’s extremely frustrating for the Council that the demos have taken so long because often times it makes us look bad to the public and sometimes there are people in the public that may not believe what we have told them when we say listen it’s on the list it’s coming down. I’ve said this probably hundreds of times over the last three years, four years, and they’ve had to wait and it’s not because of anything on our end. We did some very large contracts. We know what has happened through the pandemic. Manpower is difficult. Things in that nature that hinder contractors even more and it is what it is. I will tell you that this Council has already approved between 250 and 300 homes at this point, scheduled to come down. We will continue seeking funds for commercial demos. We will continue to do emergency demos as needed as well and continue to try to clean up the neighborhoods as much as we can. I just want to stress again and this all deals with the Budget, and you are welcome to have questions as well, because it is pretty straight forward, but I think what people have to understand is we have taken a very fiscally responsible approach, this administration, for the last 11 years, going on 12 years. I should have brought the exact number, but we are down a couple dozen employees just from [2] when this administration began. Several dozen employees if you go back 20 years ago. Some would say well that was 20 years ago, well guess what, 20 years ago you still had the same amount of streets to take place, you still had the same square mileage of area to maintain in the City of McKeesport, you were still doing the same types of services now and to be honest with you we are at a point now where the blight is worse than it was 20 years ago so we actually are dealing with more issues than we had maybe 20 years ago, 10 years ago, and we are doing so with much less resources. We have done a few hirings and that’s because we have to make sure we maintain the level of services that our residents deserve. So, believe me when I tell you with our Department heads, we continue to stress to provide the services our residents are so deserving of and we are doing so with less and less resources. Other than that, the Budget is pretty straight forward, no increases in salaries, yet again for administration. We only give one every few years for administration, pretty much once every four. There are union increases in here with all five different bargaining units that we do have. We will be spending 2023 starting to renegotiate new agreements which is a tall task within itself, especially when you are dealing with inflation and cost of living, how much it’s gone up, and these are things that we know the bargaining will come at us with, but I am extremely confident that at the end of the day we have been able to amicably deal with contracts in the 11 years, going on 12 years that we have been here and I feel very confident we will continue to come up with solutions together as we move forward because, at the end of the day, I think we are all very well aware of the financial situation. Other than that, I know this is just a Budget hearing, but I will turn it over if anyone has questions, I know I dealt with so many questions individually, people contacting me and asking me questions, and things like that, so that’s often times why there are not as many questions in this meeting. I think it’s important for the public to understand that as well when people get these. We had their budgets to them over two weeks ago, whatever it was, almost three, and you get the questions from there. So, if anyone has anything I will take it, other than that, we can move on with things, Mr. President. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor and asked if there were any questions. [3] President Dellapenna said I just asked Mr. Elash a question, the recycling will that come every two weeks now. Mayor Cherepko said that’s the plan. That’s a very good question. The new garbage hauler, we did want to say we are going to go back to every two weeks, every other week. President Dellapenna said that’s good. Mayor Cherepko said this was also a complaint. There’s a small possibility that may not happen until like the middle of the year but we, a lot of things are moving quickly because this hauler received the contract so late, they are getting trucks, there’s a lot that goes in when you take on a new community, especially when we take it for granted, but in McKeesport when you look at the valley, we are one of the largest communities. So, we do have a backup plan if we have to keep recycling for once a month, but I will, I think the residents will be happy to hear that we will be going back to every other week, no later than July 1st. I am pretty confident we are going to go with every other week the end of January but we will know within the next couple weeks for sure. Great question though. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. Someone spoke and asked is the garbage not being picked up today due to the contract and the bid? Mayor Cherepko said the garbage not picked up today, if you are talking physically today, just let us know, no they are picking up garbage they are just once again missing things. They did have a break down though, because I am on the garbage texts, when people call us we send it right to the management and I am on one and they said they did have a truck break down and things that were missed yesterday are getting picked up today so it’s not that they stopped picking up, it’s just that there was sporadic collection the last couple years to the point where it’s no secret. I mean, I myself picked up garbage probably 30-40 times in a garbage truck. I mean that’s where it got and then we went for a while where I didn’t have to do that and then over this last year it started going downhill. Like, the second year wasn’t horrible, it was much improved, we still had issues and complaints coming in, but at a much smaller level. This year is starting to get real bad again but yes, they are physically still working, but there are still misses happening. [4] President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor and asked for any other questions with regard to the Budget. President Dellapenna then repeated three times asking if there were any questions or comments from the audience. No person answered. President Dellapenna then said that concludes the Public Hearing portion of the meeting and Work Session will start. Work Session. The Work Session portion of the Council Meeting was called to order on the above-stated date by President Richard Dellapenna. Secretary James read the following proposed Bills: Bill #58 – needs removed from the table – Introduced by Jill Lape – A Resolution of the City of McKeesport, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Authorizing the Proper City Officers to Execute All Documents Necessary to Accept the Proposal of Amasti, Inc. for the Lease of a Postage Machine and Scale. Mr. Maglicco said this is our postage machine and envelope stuffer. We are getting a new machine, it slightly increases the price but nothing major. Mr. Barry asked so we are going to remove this to next month? Ms. James said we removed it last month we need to put it back on the table. Mr. Maglicco said it’s ready to go. Mayor Cherepko said that’s why the Bills are out of order. President Dellapenna said thank you. Bill #62 – Introduced by Brian Evans – A Resolution of the City of McKeesport, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Awarding the 2023 Bid for Hauling and Collections of Garbage, Rubbish, and Recyclables, and Authorizing the Property City Officials to Execute all Documents Necessary to enter Into an Agreement with Bigs Sanitation, Inc. for said Services. Mayor Cherepko said once again we just covered this. At least it’s Bigs and Bigs did provide a good service for us. If it was not Bigs I would be very nervous but I will still tell people it’s a new hauler even though regardless he, himself, is the owner, was in the business, he may have different employees, so be patient, [5] especially through the winter months, but I definitely feel extremely confident that we won’t deal with the long-term issues like we did with the last contractor. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor and asked for any questions on Bill 62 and there were none. Bill #63 –Introduced by Jim Barry – A Resolution of the City of McKeesport, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Authorizing the Property City Officers to Enter Into a Pest Control Contract with Pest B Gone for a Period of One Year. Mayor Cherepko said this is the same company that we have been using and I can turn to Tommy on that because he deals more hands on with them and Jeremy is the gentleman that we deal with and they have done an incredible job for us. President Dellapenna asked if there were any other questions but there were not. Bill #64 –Introduced by Jill Lape – A Resolution of the City of McKeesport, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Authorizing the Proper City Officials to Enter Into an Agreement with Mr. John for the 2023 Portable Restroom Rental Program. Mayor Cherepko said they did hold their price and I will say that the move to Mr. John several years ago, overall, has been a really good move. We have so many people that use our park and the last thing you want is somebody to walk into a port-a-john and it be horrible mess, whatever the case may be, and you’ve had those few and far between, whether it was someone had an accident or things like that. We may have had too many people in the park at one time or another, but they’ve really provided a good service for us, very, very few complaints since they’ve taken over a few years ago. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor and asked for any questions but there were none. Bill #65 –Introduced by Luethel Nesbit – A Resolution of the City of McKeesport, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Appointing Mark C. Turnley as Auditor of the City of McKeesport for the Fiscal Year 2023 and Authorizing the Proper City Officials to Execute a Contract for Said Services. Mayor Cherepko said Mark C. Turnley has been our Auditor now for quite a few years ago, our Independent Auditor, about 4 years. I think Tasha is here as well who works a lot with him during the Audits. I think things go much more [6] smoothly now. I think when he needs the information they know what they are looking for and I know I have gotten a few issues with it so usually when it comes to my level, I don’t think I got involved in anything this year, so I think they, other than when we got the Audit, he’s done a good job for us. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor and asked for any questions but there were none. Bill #66 –Introduced by Jim Barry – An Ordinance of the City of McKeesport, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Fixing the Number and Compensation of City Officials and Employees of the City of McKeesport; Levying Taxes for the Fiscal Year; Making Appropriations for the Fiscal Year 2023. Mayor Cherepko said this is the Budget Ordinance which we just talked about. To put it into numbers, cause we did a percentage before, maybe I did mention the numbers, but we can literally be looking at, we were basically around One Million Dollars for garbage. We feel we will be at least at $1.5 and upwards of 2 Million Dollars, is basically rough numbers of what we could end up with when you talk about what type of increase it is to the City Budget. So, at the time we put a half million in there before we had the numbers. Also, putting in perspective, even when we had the garbage before we went over, we were only 105, 109, I think we finished the Contract at 109 four years ago. So, just to put it in perspective to where our lowest bid came in at 135. Some other communities that do tonnage are at like 160 and even one town is at 190. So, but it is what it is and we will deal with it. We will have to address it in the future as far as the Budget goes. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor and asked for any questions but there were none. Bill #67 –Introduced by Timothy Brown – A Resolution of the City of McKeesport, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Setting Forth the Paydays for the Year 2023. President Dellapenna asked for any questions on Bill 67 but there were none. President Dellapenna then asked for Council Reports. Council Reports Mayor Cherepko said we did have to amend the Agenda, right? Oh never mind, 62 is on there we just got a separate thing for it. [7] President Dellapenna again called for Council Reports. Mrs. Nesbit – I don’t have anything at this time. Mr. Evans – nothing. Mr. Barry – nothing to report. Mr. Soles – I would like to apologize for not being there this evening in person and that’s all I have Mr. President. President Dellapenna said thank you Mr. Soles. Mr. Brown – nothing Mr. President sir. Mrs. Lape – nothing. ADJOURNMENT: President Dellapenna said that concludes the Work Session portion of the meeting. Respectfully submitted, Annette James City Clerk and Clerk of Council APPROVED: Richard Dellapenna President of Council [8]