County commissioner specials

Indiana County commissioners, left to right, Robin Gorman, Chairman Mike Keith and Sherene Hess, Dec. 1 special meeting, county courthouse. Photo: Indiana Gazette.

Reported opinion

By David Loomis

INDIANA –Indiana County commissioners’ Dec. 1 meeting was “special,” indeed. Facing a statutory deadline to adopt a 2024-2025 budget with a $6 million hole and a double-digit tax hike, discussion got, um, agitated.

The commissioners’ recorded debate borrowed from ongoing federal government-shutdown debates. It forecast a county-government-shutdown, depicted by Commissioner Robin Gorman in a 12-minute lecture during the board’s 29-minute special session.

The lecture included:

— Fear-mongering. “If we don’t pass a budget,” warned Ms. Gorman, “we shut down Dec. 31. We’re shutting down Dec. 31.”

— Hand-wringing: “What are we supposed to do? Just let our prisoners out and let them run, because there’s nobody there to keep them?”

— Self-loathing: “The state will have to step in because we are too inept to do our job that we were just elected – re-elected – to do…. Obviously we can’t do our job.”

— Responsibility-shifting: “The people don’t show up to understand this is how government works. It’s the people. And yet the people don’t show up to make the tough decisions with us.”  (Board Chairman Mike Keith echoed the buck-passing lament.)

— Blame-casting: “We were handed a mess….. We have been trying to dig ourselves out since 2020.” (Historical note: Previous boards, like the current one, have been majority-Republican for many moons.)

“I just wanted everybody to know the facts,” concluded Ms. Gorman.

 

BOARD MEMBER Sherene Hess followed with a fact, both procedural and political, directed to the board’s Republican majority.

“You can pass a budget,” said Ms. Hess, the lone Democrat on the three-member board, who has opposed a budget with a double-digit tax increase. “It doesn’t have to be a unanimous agreement.”

Several minutes of defensiveness by the two majority members ensued. Ms. Hess responded in a keep-calm-and-carry-on tone.

“This county is going to provide the services this county needs,” she said. “I want to be very clear about that…. But the budget needs work.”

Pin-drop silence for 11 seconds.

Ms. Gorman, agitated: “I can assure you, I’m going to hold you accountable for that all year long.”

Mr. Keith: “And me too.”

Ms. Gorman, voice rising: “You have to cut services! You have to cut services, commissioner!”

Ms. Hess: “There are ways to do it without cutting the outcome of those services.”

 

WHILE TAXPAYERS await the ways and means, they may note that neighboring governments have managed to advance 2024 budget proposals without tax hikes. They include Indiana borough, Homer City, White Township, Center Township and even the county’s current 2023 budget (for which the per-capita tax was eliminated).

Citizens might also review United Way of Indiana County hardship data released in May 2023. The local nonprofit reported that 30 percent of county residents are asset-limited, income-constrained and employed (ALICE), and another 15 percent are living below the federal poverty line.

“This means 45 percent of Indiana County households face financial hardship every day, in every community in Indiana County,” the local United Way reported.

The county’s hardship measure exceeds both Pennsylvania and national averages.

 

THE NEXT county commissioners special meeting on the budget is scheduled for Friday, 10:30 a.m., in their meeting room, second floor, the county courthouse.

__________

David Loomis, Ph.D., emeritus professor of journalism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, is editor of The HawkEye.

The HawkEye invites comments on this and other issues of community interest. Email doloomis@live.iup.edu or click on the “contact us” drop-down menu, above.