Coaldale officials have reopened the 2014 budget, hoping to find a way to expand services provided by the police, street and fire departments. After a meeting Thursday, they're armed with good information but no closer to answers.

They'll meet again at 6:30 p.m. Monday, at the Borough Hall. The budget, if altered, must be posted by Jan. 21.Francis Hutta, one of three residents who attended, summed up the issues the Coaldale board faces, saying, "Making sure citizens have a good quality of life is expensive."Only four board members attended: Chairman Angela Krapf, Harry Hontz, Brenda Hosler and Linda Miller. Absent were Mayor Richard Kellner, and councilmen Thomas Keerans, Steve Tentylo and Michael Doerr. The four who attended took stacks of budget information home to study.During the meeting, the top two priorities emerged: restoring full-time positions in the police and road departments.Secretary/treasurer Andrea Davis, who provided a five-year overview of budgets for the supervisors to review, cautioned that as a general rule, salaries should not exceed one-third of revenues.The 2014 budget had been adopted with no tax increase, with predicted revenues and expenditures balanced at $1.7 million each.The budget calls for police salaries of $199,500, which includes one full-time position, Chief Tim Delaney, and part-time officers. Formerly, Coaldale had four full-time policemen, including Delany and three full-time officers; but the three full-time officers were furloughed in April 2012. Currently the borough is covered by Delaney and part-time officers.Could the full-time police positions be restored? That's a question the supervisors will ponder over the weekend. Davis pointed out that the budget numbers are tight now, and that the police salary figure does not include additional expenses Coaldale would incur with full-time officers, such as health benefits, which would cost about $10,000 per officer.A related issue the board faces is how to recover delinquent real estate taxes, which are $49,489. Real estate tax revenue is estimated at $386,000 in the 2014 budget, but projected real estate tax delinquencies could total $70,000, Davis said.Hosler agreed that the real estate revenue estimates should be made cautiously."You can almost guarantee that you're going to get less this year than last year," she said.Krapf asked that the council members present set aside time over the weekend to study the numbers."Now we know what we feel are the priorities," Krapf said. "We'll go at this as a team."