Pleasant Hills property owners to pay more in real estate taxes due to garbage collection

Pleasant Hills property owners will pay more in real estate taxes this year.

Council recently passed its 2021 spending plan with a one-mill tax hike. The new tax rate is 7.75 mills.

The median home value in the borough is about $143,500, which means that property owner will pay about $143.50 more in taxes this year.

Borough manager Kelly Theiss said the millage increase is for garbage collection.

“Our current garbage billing software is over 20 years old,” Theiss said. “Over the last two years, we’ve been evaluating options for the billing process such as purchasing new software, outsourcing the billing to a third-party company, creating an annual billing program instead of quarterly, or including the garbage fees directly in taxes. Upon review, the most efficient and cost-effective option is to make an adjustment to the tax millage and no longer invoice for garbage.”

Garbage collection was set to be billed at $52.21 per quarter, meaning the annual bill would have been about $209.

“Eliminating the quarterly postcards for trash billing and including the fee in taxes will make it more advantageous for our residents to manage and will save the borough added administrative costs,” Theiss said. “There will also no longer be a need to lien properties for non-payment of their garbage bill, an additional advantage for our residents.”

Eileen Solinas, council member and finance committee chair, said it was time for an upgrade.

She said many residents will see savings with the new collection system.

“Our current billing program is running off an old MS DOS printer and system that had no means for replacement parts, which was highly concerning,” Solinas said. “I believe the benefits and savings to our residents were well worth the change.”

Budget details

The budget is available for review on the borough’s website, pleasanthillspa.com.

Projected revenue and expenses were listed at about $9.73 million.

Income included about $5.043 million in real estate taxes, $1.71 million in Act 511 taxes, $33,700 in licenses and permits, $373,000 in state revenue, $941,000 from authority rentals and $107,100 in miscellaneous funds.

Expenses include about $3.16 million for police, $200,000 for fire protection, $84,000 for administration, $243,600 for clerks/secretaries, $142,000 for engineering, $1.7 million for sanitation and $906,000 for road maintenance and street lighting.

Theiss said the covid pandemic made financial planning challenging but did not create a major hardship for the borough like in other communities.

“It was difficult, not knowing when the pandemic will be over and how much more things will change makes for a large gray area when trying to plan for the future,” Theiss said. “I definitely had a lot more ‘what ifs’ with this budget, but like every budget, you are always planning for the emergencies that may arise. We were able to sustain. Where we had revenue loss, we also had expenditure loss.”

Solinas commended Theiss and the administrative team for moving things forward in uncertain times.

“Like most industries right now, the most difficult challenge is trying to prepare for unpredictability and any unplanned needs that may arise,” Solinas said. “Fortunately, we’ve been able to navigate through the storm pretty well because of our team and department heads who put the borough and our bottom line at the top of their priority list.

“Many of our plans continue to hinge on the pandemic, but we are hopeful to begin a return to normalcy in 2021 so that we can plan for more community events to see our neighbors and residents again.”

Park upgrades planned

Park upgrades are expected to take place this year.

Breisinger Field will get new lights to boost its utilization. The borough received a $100,000 grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development’s Greenways Trails and Recreation program to help fund the project.

Upgrades to the lighting system at Mowry Park are also planned.

“Outdoor sports are even more important for our kids now with many indoor sports being canceled due to the pandemic,” Solinas said.

Pleasant Hills also received a $200,000 grant from the state’s Small Water and Sewer program to replace a sewer line behind the American Legion, and a $220,445 grant from the Multimodal Transportation Fund for repairs to the Old Lebanon Church Road pedestrian bridge.