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Local communities struggle to make ends meet

This is the time of year when local boroughs and townships must create and approve budgets for the coming year, and each year the task becomes more daunting for the four Panther Valley boroughs of Coaldale, Lansford, Nesquehoning and Summit Hill.

Each faces the perfect storm of rising costs, declining populations and lower tax bases.

From the days when I was a kid growing up in Summit Hill, the population of the four boroughs has declined by more than 40 percent.

Lansford remains the largest of the four, as it did then, but the population is now estimated at 3,983 this year. Next comes Nesquehoning at 3,267, Summit Hill at 2,920 and Coaldale at 2,239. In 1950, when I was a boy of 11, Summit Hill’s population was a little more than 5,000.

Diving into U.S. Census figures for the four communities can be ultra depressing, because not only have the population numbers fallen precipitously in the intervening decades, but projections forecast a continuing slide for all four.

Summit Hill is expected to lose the most, six-tenths of a percent in the next five years; Coaldale, half of a percent; Nesquehoning, four-tenths of a percent, and Lansford, two-tenths of a percent.

This might not seem like much, but it continues an unsustainable trend line. While these communities might be able to cut and paste and rob Peter to pay Paul for the next decade or so, what then?

What played out at the Lansford Borough Council meeting of Dec. 3 is a similar pattern of the issues and challenges the other three Valley boroughs are facing.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell: Tax revenue is going down while costs are going up. One need not be a financial expert to understand these implications: To balance a budget with these characteristics at play, a community must either raise taxes, cut expenses including services or do both.

If these were exclusive communities inhabited by high wage-earners and rich people, raising taxes might be an option, but they are anything but, so any tax increase creates additional hardships on low-income property-owners who are desperately trying to hold on to their homes.

Boroughs are just one of the three governmental entities that are reaching into our pockets every year for real estate taxes. The biggest reach comes from school districts; the other is counties.

The problems facing the four boroughs in the Panther Valley carry over to the Panther Valley School District, which faces even more intense pressure to balance its budget. Municipal budgets follow the calendar year (January through December); school district budgets go from July 1 through June 30. It won’t be long before we hear the annual lament from the Panther Valley administration and board about the giant hill to climb to balance the 2019-20 budget along with the inevitable tax increase.

We can see the proof of the dilemma in these eye-popping figures. Among 1,763 municipalities surveyed in Pennsylvania, Coaldale ranks 1,763rd in per capital income; Lansford, 1,692nd; Nesquehoning, 1,161st; and Summit Hill is tops among the four, coming in at 622nd. The average value of a home in Summit Hill is $139,461, best among the four boroughs. Then comes Nesquehoning, $131,857; Lansford, $109,382; and Coaldale, $73,916. The average home value in Carbon County is $141,300; in Schuylkill County, it is $96,200. In the nearby Lehigh Valley, the average home price has ballooned to nearly $220,000. Location. Location. Location.

So, the operative question is: What’s the answer? Planners have been saying for several decades now that intermunicipal cooperation is an important first step, but this is merely a means to an end.

The tougher question is whether a borough of fewer than 4,000, with no immediate prospect for population or property-value growth, is viable in the modern era. Some suggest mergers. Would one municipality of 12,409 be more inviting to business, industry and individuals than four small ones?

Even tougher is how to sell such a radical idea to officials and residents who are rooted in the concept of home rule at the grass roots.

In the Times News five-county area, just about every modern attempted merger failed at the polls. About 40 years ago, voters in the city of Easton and its suburban municipalities were asked whether they wanted to merge to form a large city of more than 50,000 residents. Easton voters said “yes,” but voters in each of the suburban municipalities overwhelmingly voted “no,” because they wanted no part of Easton’s financial challenges, high taxes and crime problems.

A generation ago, a major study recommended the merger of Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg boroughs and Stroud Township in Monroe County to form a municipality of about 25,000, but nothing ever happened.

Pennsylvania is a state of big numbers — 67 counties, 56 cities, 961 boroughs, 1,549 townships, 20,015 municipal authorities and one incorporated town, according to the state Department of Economic and Community Development.

Yet only 12 municipal mergers or consolidations have taken place since 1991 and none in 10 years. Voters rejected 16 mergers during that span.

Can these four Panther Valley communities survive the long-term downward trend lines without an ingenious and out-of-the-box solution?

The state mandated school district consolidation in the 1960s. Don’t expect the state even to consider doing the same with municipalities given today’s political climate.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com