Sell the incinerator. Lease the parking garages. Get concessions from creditors and hire a chief operating officer.
Those are some of the main points of the Harrisburg receiver’s financial recovery strategy, which was released last month.
However, there are many other initiatives and recommendations buried deep within the report’s 194 pages. If enacted, these also could have a substantial impact upon life in Harrisburg–for residents, city employees and visitors.
The following are among the numerous less-publicized proposals outlined in receiver’s plan.
Workforce (most recommendations subject to re-negotiation of union contracts)
- Reduce healthcare expenses by requiring greater employee contributions (currently, workers pay very little to their healthcare coverage).
- Eliminate retiree healthcare for new hires (currently, the city pays healthcare for all retired employees).
- Freeze benefit levels for all retirement plans and explore changing retirement plans from defined benefit plans to defined contributions plans (much like private sector 401 (k) plans).
- Implement new pay scales for police and firefighters that will dramatically lower entry-level wages to bring them in line with nearby jurisdictions.
- Use professionals for labor negotiations and establish labor/management committees.
- Limit almost all labor contract enhancements, such as new overtime and benefits.
- Freeze longevity pay, reduce paid holidays and personal time to 10 days annually and reduce vacation and sick leave.
- If the city’s three labor unions refuse to renegotiate their contracts, declare union contract extensions granted by former Mayor Stephen Reed to be null and void.
- Increase the number of city staff attorneys from one to three: city solicitor, deputy city solicitor and assistant city solicitor.
Revenues & Taxes
- Increase earned income and property taxes as primary means to help balance the budget.
- Review real estate assessments to ensure properties are assessed properly.
- Increase use of “payment in lieu of taxes” programs with non-taxable entities.
- Increase business license fees and link them to an inflationary index.
- Increase enforcement of local services tax.
- Increase interest and penalties for late and non-payment of various taxes.
- Improve real estate tax collection rate.
- Select a broker to identify city assets for advertising, concessions, marketing and sponsorship opportunities with private businesses and organizations.
- Sell remaining historic artifacts.
Parking Enforcement
- Increase parking ticket fees from $15 to $30 per standard violation; $50 if not paid after five business days; $100 if not paid after 10 business days; fire hydrant/handicapped parking violation would double to $100 per incident.
- Extend on-street parking meter hours from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
- Increase efficiency and productivity (and generate more revenue) by hiring a full-time, civilian parking enforcement manager, upgrading the electronic ticket system and ensuring that officers write about five more tickets a week.
Police Bureau
- Restructure police patrol duty, reallocate staff and introduce a rotating schedule to ensure better, more even coverage for all three police shifts.
- Implement a proactive crime analysis and crime reduction strategy, as opposed to just reacting to reports of crime.
- Assign a minimum of six investigators, up from four, to the bureau’s vice unit, which is responsible for narcotics investigations.
- At a cost of $90,000, build an interface between the Dauphin County dispatch/9-11 system and the city’s METRO computer system to improve police response and information access.
Fire Bureau
- To slash overtime, change the shift structure from a four-platoon to a three-platoon system. One ladder company would be eliminated, as would five bureau positions.
- Eliminate “premium pay” for regularly assigned hours.
- Renegotiate union contracts so the city can determine staffing needs and can lay off firefighters without contract restrictions.
- Explore closing one fire station.
- False alarm fees should be increased from $50 for the third in a 12-month period to $50 for the second incident, with amounts escalating from there.
Trash Collection
- Implement a “container-based” trash collection system, which would include issuing residents new, wheeled trash carts. A bond would be issued to pay for new carts and trucks. If the city cannot issue a bond or if workers are resistant to the change, it should consider using an outside vendor for trash collection.
- Ensure that businesses use city trash services.
- Promote greater recycling through education and begin recycling of paper and cardboard products.
Building & Housing
- Increase fees, fines and charges for services.
- Hire additional code and enforcement officers to clean and prevent backlogs. Organize and deploy multi-agency code enforcement teams.
- Get grants and hire contractors to demolish blighted structures (currently, the city has a backlog of 300 such buildings).
- Update the city’s comprehensive plan, which has been largely unchanged since 1974.
- Develop a comprehensive housing strategy that would include neighborhood planing, guidelines for new and rehab housing and efforts to promote the city as a place to live.
- Designate a housing coordinator, who would help coordinate and guide a comprehensive housing strategy.
Economic Development
- Designate an economic development coordinator, who would coordinate a strategic plan and direct economic development activities.
- Evaluate and possibly revise and extend the city’s tax abatement strategy for new and renovated buildings.
- Improve management and collection rates of the mismanaged MOED/ revolving loan portfolio, in which taxpayer-funded, city loans were given to private businesses, many of which later defaulted on their loans.
Capital Improvement
- Establish a multi- year capital improvement program to address Harrisburg’s severely deteriorating infrastructure. Needs must be assessed, projects indentified and a schedule rigorously developed and followed.
Assets
- Explore a sale and lease-back of city-owned buildings, such as the City Government Center. If another city building becomes available for city hall, consider selling and vacating the building, which is in need of significant repair and improvement.
Utilities
- Establish a stormwater utility fee to fund stormwater expenses and improvements.
Policy
- The mayor, receiver, business administrator and the City Council Budget & Finance chairman should meet at least monthly to review financial and operational issues.
- Implement quarterly financial reporting and develop city-wide financial policies.
- Establish a “debt policy” to guide the issuance and use of debt,
- Conduct regular implementation meetings for the recovery plan and form smaller implementation teams to oversee specific aspects of the plan.
- Implement a performance management system to track government productivity, activity and cost-effectiveness.
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