POTTSTOWN, PA – There is a fairly simple reason why violent crime in Pottstown seems to have been on the rise in 2014.
The police were short-handed.
“At the beginning of 2014, we were down by 15 officers,” said Pottstown Police Chief Richard Drumheller.
“As a result, we had to pull people off the drug detail and, not surprisingly, we saw an increase in the drug problem,” he said.
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Mount Joy borough officials appointed a new interim police chief Monday after accepting the resignation of the former interim chief, who was only on the job for two and a half weeks.
At Monday’s meeting, council accepted the resignation of Luis Mendez, who began as interim chief on Feb. 6, and reinstated him to his former position of part-time patrol officer.
Council then appointed Maurice “Bill” Williams as the new interim chief.
Williams, a retired lieutenant from the Lancaster City Bureau of Police, will take leadership of Mount Joy’s police department on the condition that he passes pre-employment testing.
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Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Luzerne County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
WILKES-BARRE, PA — While children crawled through the city’s fire safety trailer at Kirby Park eight days ago, a homeowner on Almond Lane waiting for an engine to arrive from across town used a garden hose in an attempt to douse flames.
The fire, started by spontaneous combustion of grass clippings in a plastic recycling container climbed up to the second floor, causing damage inside and out before firefighters extinguished them.
“They got it,” said Greg Freitas, vice president of the city firefighters’ union.
But the damage could have been minimized with more firefighters and equipment available, a long-running sticking point with the International Association of Firefighters Local 104 which has seen the minimum staffing level reduced by more than one-third over a 10-year period.
Read more: http://www.timesleader.com/news//503886/Fire-response-time-questioned-in-W-B
Location of Pottstown in Montgomery County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
POTTSTOWN, PA — Departures and changes of personnel over the summer have the Pottstown School District scrambling to cover responsibilities and, at the same time, use the opportunity to “do more with less.”
A number of key administrators are retiring, or have found other jobs, it was revealed at Thursday’s school board meeting.
Among those leaving are Rita Cohen, who is supervisor of secondary special education who is retiring, and Jerry Umamarino, assistant high school principal and Lincoln Elementary Principal Loretta Hoch, both of whom have found employment elsewhere.
The sequence of those departures has forced the Pottstown administration to re-configure and re-configure again, who will be responsible for what and how things will change for the coming school year.
Despite needing 174 officers this year and budgeting for 168, the Reading Police Department has fewer than 140 officers able to do their full jobs, Police Chief William M. Heim told City Council on Monday.
And the Reading Fire Department is down seven firefighters from its already pared force – a gap being filled by mandatory overtime because the firefighters are too tired to volunteer for it – acting Fire Chief Jeffrey Squibb said.
Mass retirements have plagued both departments, and council asked the chiefs what their needs were for the city’s safety. The question was partly a reaction to council’s earlier, grudging approval of two new hires for the mayor’s office.
Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States Public School Districts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Frustrations ran high among Exeter school officials at a budget workshop held before a sparse crowd this week.
“It’s a bind the state has put us in,” said Dr. David S. Bender, school board vice president.
“Not to mention the lack of support in Harrisburg for education funding,” said Dr. Beverly A. Martin, superintendent. “You don’t want to raise taxes because people are hurting. How do you get out of that type of hole?”
Since adopting a preliminary budget of $64.8 million in January, the district has slashed expenses by about $1.8 million, Business Manager Anne Guydish said. However, a budget shortfall of $844,298 remains.
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Allentown officials knew a staggering number of city firefighters would retire in 2011, it was just a matter of how many.
Fire Chief Robert Scheirer predicted months ago that some 50 firefighters would retire before the union’s contract that contained a generous pension clause was set to expire Dec. 31, echoing a similar mass exodus six years ago in the police department.
Now that the paperwork has settled, city officials say 42 firefighters left in 2011 — nearly one-third of the department usually staffed with about 140 firefighters. That’s by far the most firefighter retirees in one year, second only to the departure of 80 police officers six years ago.
Read more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-allentown-pa-firefighters-retire-20120104,0,7856335.story
If you have followed events over the last year, you know that a crucial vote is coming up this Thursday. The Pottstown School Board will be voting on which Task Force option to go with. Mr. Hylton of course favors the five school plan because he mistakenly thinks that people are moving to Pottstown because we have “walkable” elementary schools. In fact, people don’t move to Pottstown because of the school system.
The Task Force labored for a year to come up with a plan. Naturally, Mr. Hylton is against their recommendations because Mr. Hylton’s brain contains more intelligence than the sum total of the other 22,376 residents of Pottstown combined. If you don’t believe me, just ask him. This vast reservoir of knowledge brought us back-in angle parking on High Street This bone-headed concept has had a negative impact on our central business district. If you don’t think so, drive down High Street aka Desolation Boulevard. Many people refuse to park on High Street because of the back-in parking. It is very unpopular (much like the purple lights),
I received permission to repost the comment below from the author. The writer explains why Mr. Hylton’s “logic” on keeping five elementary schools is a negative and in the long run far more costly than reducing to three elementary schools, as recommended by the Task Force. The comment was in response to this SavePottstown!! post. I urge you to read and carefully consider this information!
Without further adieu I give you Even Keel’s words of wisdom:
It amazes me that some school board members will make this decision based on buildings. Buildings! Not tax savings, not a better educational product, not improved efficiency, but buildings.
IMHO, the two biggest questions to ask and base a decision from are:
1) What are the future costs to the town in tax dollars? What plan saves us the most future tax dollars?
2) What plan provides for the most efficient, effective educational product for the children?
So I’ll take a stab at your question, readytomove, because my belief is that the recommended 3 school, PK – 5 plan accomplishes the best long-term savings.
While the 3 school plan is 33 million, there is a significant PDE reimbursement so that 33 quickly becomes 24. Let’s figure in a more than generous cost overrun, just for arguments sake, and make it 26 mil for total construction costs of the 3 school plan.
The 5 school maintenance plan has been estimated (estimated, because there are still some figures which aren’t known) as a 13-15 million dollar plan. There is no PDE reimbursement with this (and quite possibly a higher cost of financing.) Let’s add in that same cost overrun and put it at 17 mil for the upgrade costs of the 5 school maintenance plan.
That leaves a high estimate of an upfront 9 million dollar difference between the two plans.
Now, let’s look at the savings. With the 3 school plan, the savings in staff reductions is $750,000 in the first year. That cost was generated using this current year’s salary/benefit numbers. This savings would actually increase each consecutive year (compounding) as teacher salaries/benefits costs are always increasing, which we’re all painfully aware of.
Operating and utility cost savings for the 3 school plan would equal $135,000 the first year. (This figure does not take into account the efficiency savings of improved lighting, newer efficient HVAC systems, etc.) Again, this was calculated using this year’s utility and operating costs and as they also go up every year, this savings would increase each consecutive year.
So, in the first year alone the 3 school plan saves $885,000 in staff, operating and utility reductions and that number actually increases in every consecutive future year. But wait, there’s more! The Plan-Con financing for the 3 school plan may yield a much better rate of financing. With current cap rates, it is very feasible it could be as much as 2% or more. There is a small savings to be had there.
All totaled, the per annual savings of the 3 school plan would be very close to a million dollars. It would therefore take approx. less than 9 years to make up the savings of expending the additional 9 million dollars up front, right now for the 3 school plan. (Coincidentally, 9 years from now is when the highest debt burden of the PERS fiasco will be upon us. Seems to me we would want to be saving the most money possibly come that point in time to keep the tax burden lower than it needs to be.)
To be fair, the 5 school maintenance plan does provide savings, but nowhere near to these levels. The utility savings for the geo-thermal payoff alone are longer than 9 years. And I’ll throw it out there – Mr. Hylton loves to say that his plan would keep these buildings open for 20+ more years but not Crabtree Rohrbaugh or any structural engineer has yet to professionally opine that sentiment.
Look at all the improvements you’re getting with the 3 school plan that you aren’t with the other: ADA compliance, multi-purpose rooms to accommodate PE and lunch, Pre-K rooms for a max of 20 students, classrooms for a max of 25 (classroom max is higher with the other plan), decent library, art, music and computer rooms. All of these things for lesser future tax dollars than keeping the current status quo.
Mr. Hylton loves to dangle the fact that Pottstown is the 7th highest taxed district in the State. His plan of “light maintenance” on 5 schools does nothing to help that figure. It is a band-aid for a system that has failed us when what we need is a shift towards a more efficient system. The 3 school plan gives us an opportunity to realize better efficiency in schools that attract people and includes significant future cost reductions.
We may never see taxes go down, but we can make the right choices to slow their impending rise in the future.
A wise Superintendent recently said, “It takes courageous leadership from individuals in the community as well as those in official positions of leadership to focus on the issues that continually keep this community from reaching its potential.”
Truer words were never spoken.
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Our good friends over at Save Pottstown!! have brought a recent epidemic to light that we feel is important information for the taxpayers and law-abiding citizens of Pottstown to be made aware of. The problem is an over-zealous 6th Ward resident(s) has plastered Save Rupert flyers on any stationary object they can find.
Save Pottstown’s research found that posting these flyers is illegal in the Borough of Pottstown. Secondly, these flyers also include Franklin School on them. However, as Save Pottstown discovered, these flyers are thankfully NOT in the North End. I live near Franklin School and have not seen any and please don’t pollute our neighborhood with them.
The hysteria and inability to make a rational decision about keeping 5 old school buildings is beyond comprehension. People are not moving to Pottstown in droves because of neighborhood schools. Instead, they move to other school districts all around Pottstown with more modern facilities. Mr. Hylton’s own “figures” show that PSD enrollment is down and staff is up so why is he so hell-bent on keeping all these old buildings? The mother of all $64,000 questions!
To read Save Pottstown’s excellent analysis, click here:
http://savepottstown.com/lang/es/2011/07/crime-wave-hits-the-east-end/
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Pottstown has struggled with its Fire Department budget for some time. The debate over merging fire companies to cut overhead has been suggested. Currently Pottstown has four fire companies with paid drivers and administration. The majority of the firefighters are volunteers. The borough gives the four fire department money and pays the health insurance for the drivers. Each fire company must then raise any additional funds themselves.
Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Allentown have obviously larger fire departments with more paid staff. Volunteerism is down. A huge problem these three cities have experienced is a drastic increase in overtime. Scranton’s Fire Department racked up just under one million dollars in overtime for 2010 (more than double what was budgeted). The Scranton Fire Department had a budget of $14.3 million for 2010.
Allentown’s Fire Department overtime budget was blown in 2010 when $1.4 million was spent on overtime. Wilkes-Barre spent $322, 958 on overtime which was nearly double what was budgeted.
A big culprit is sick time. Sick time use in Scranton has been rising for the last three years. When one firefighter calls out sick, another firefighter is called in and paid overtime to cover the shift. Scranton is changing their schedules, minimum manning requirements per shift and instituting fire company brownouts to save money this year. Only $83,950 was included for Fire Department overtime in the city’s $74.9 budget for 2011.
The Scranton Fire Department blames being a 168 man department with only 150 firefighters on the payroll. Overtime was being used to “make up the difference”. Like Scranton, Allentown also has minimum manning requirement per shift which contributes greatly to their overtime. Wilkes-Barre Mayor, Tom Leighton said his city experiences a 25-30 percent call off rate in every shift, which burns up overtime.
In Scranton, the average firefighter costs the city $84,000 in salary and benefits every year. This will increase substantially after the arbitration award kicks in. Mayor Chris Doherty’s salary and benefits come to about $65,000 per year, as a point of reference. Firefighters get 18 sick days per year, which can be accrued up to 120 days, 240 days or unlimited, depending on their hire date. Firefighters get paid for unused sick days at the termination of their employment. They are reimbursed anywhere from 25 percent to 100 percent, depending on their date of hire.
I hope Pottstown Council carefully studies these issues before making the paid drivers employees of the borough. If this comes to pass, we need to learn from these three cities to avoid a bill we cannot afford.
Does anybody need or know of anyone looking for truck mechanics in the Pottstown area? My neighbor has been looking for months. He and his wife have a new baby and a toddler so he really needs the work! If you have any leads, please leave me a comment and I will let him know.
Thanks much!!!
If you are looking for work check out:
My friend James is a great guy and wants to help put you back to work or find you a new career.
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