Dennis Yablonsky, right, CEO, Allegheny Conference, speaks on behalf of Senate bills 1429 & 1357 as, from left, Rich Hudic, Team PA President & CEO, David Patti, President, PA Business Council, and David Black, President, Harrisburg Regional Chamber of Commerce, listen.
BREAKING NEWS: October 26, 2010 – Senate Bill 1429 is now Act 102 after Governor Ed Rendell signed the bill into law today! The new law aids local municipalities that want to consolidate. Team PA held the first meeting on this issue back in April {covered here} publicizing this plan to the legislature and the business community on behalf of the PA State Planning Board.
Read why Team PA and others believe municipal reform is a good idea.
The following story was first published on August 19 following a hearing before House members who gathered to obtain information on SB 1429.
The Mayor of Easton believes the way local municipalities govern needs to change because the current form is antiquated.
Mayor Sal Panto’s comments were part of a hearing before the Pennsylvania House Local Government Committee on Senate bills 1357 and 1429, which would create a Boundary Review Commission and streamline voluntary municipal consolidation with a home rule option, respectively.
“You are probably asking yourself, ‘why is a municipal association advocating for the reorganization of municipalities?’” said Panto, who is also past president of The Pennsylvania League of Cities and Municipalities (PLCM). “The answer is simple – the structure of the 1800s does not foster prosperity in the 21st century. In today’s world, the boundary lines between municipalities have faded with the reality of daily living.”
Concerning SB 1357, Panto said the Boundary Review proposal would put a public process in place for the stated purpose of regionalizing local government in order to promote fiscal healthy municipalities, sound growth and development and efficient delivery of services.
“As Pennsylvanians, we must move away from the fear that a larger local government structure cannot serve as well as a smaller unit,” Panto testified. “This bill presents us with a public process and an opportunity to begin changing that belief.”
In showing support for SB 1429, Panto said PLCM believes public policy should encourage the most efficient and cost saving avenue to achieve consolidation or merger, and that the bill allows municipalities to pursue Home Rule as a form of government.
Representatives of business organizations across the state also testified on behalf of the two pieces of legislation.
Dennis Yablonsky, CEO, Allegheny Conference on Community Development, told House Local Government Committee members that SB 1429 would amend the existing Merger or Consolidation Act to provide additional options to communities ready for change.
The proposed amendment would allow communities interested in merging or consolidating to develop both a merger/consolidation plan and a new home rule charter within the same process and allow voters to approve the resulting plan in a single referendum. Current law requires the two issues to be initiated and voted on through separate, sequential processes which add years to the effort to establish the form of government that the community wants.
“We believe SB 1429 will assist local communities who have already decided to change their governments and build a different future together to get on the road to that future more quickly and effectively. SB 1429 is truly the ultimate in local control – which is critical at a time when our local governments are facing fiscal stress and expanding service demands and need new tools to meet these challenges,” Yablonsky said.
Yablonsky offered testimony in conjunction with other business community leaders – Gene Barr, vice president of government and public affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry; David Black, president & CEO of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and the Capital Region Economic Development Corporation; Michelle Griffin Young, executive vice president of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce and David Patti, president & CEO of the Pennsylvania Business Council.
Team PA supports efforts to promote municipal government efficiency, but did not testify due to its status as a 501(C) 3 non-profit organization.
“Team PA is about making government and business practices more efficient and productive so Pennsylvania stays competitive,” Rich Hudic, Team PA, President and CEO, said. “This legislation allows municipalities to determine what is the right fit for them and simplifies the process in order to get them there, if they so choose. The savings realized by combining services alone could be very significant.”
Gerald Cross, Executive Director, Central Division, Pennsylvania Economy League, said a recent study showed that the relative fiscal health of a municipality was as much related to how constrained that municipality was in its revenue options to pay for services as to how many services were provided to residents.
“Municipalities that must rely on local tax revenues from within their borders will not produce sufficient revenue to provide necessary services for their residents,” Cross said. “Public services expenditures paid for within these tax dollars have increased in cost and demand beyond the ability to pay from boundary limited revenue sources.
In 1970, local taxes across the commonwealth – excluding Pittsburgh and Philadelphia – produced 58 percent of total revenues for local municipalities; in 2006, that share fell to 39 percent. Additionally, expenses, when adjusted for inflation, nearly doubled in cities and townships since 1970 and climbed to nearly 330 percent in second class municipalities.
“Other data in that study indicates that even prosperous municipalities that have relied on seemingly unlimited growth in earned income taxes and real estate transfer taxes will have to rely on more and more on raising real estate taxes to keep up with their service costs,” Cross added.
The Pennsylvania Association of Township Supervisors and Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs also testified at the hearing. The township supervisors said they support SB 1429 and borough officials said they “would be willing” to back that bill, but both were opposed to SB 1357.
Here is background on these two issues:
