Taxes in McKeesport will remain the same next year as council unanimously approved a $24.5 million budget for 2019 that keeps taxes at 6.26 mills on buildings and 18.5 mills on land. But Mayor Michael Cherepko said the city may start doing its own trash hauling in a cost-cutting move.
Properties valued at the median property value of $22,300 would continue to pay $39.40 on the building and $309.41 on the land.
“We will hold our taxes,” said Mr. Cherepko at the Dec. 5 meeting. “There is no increase in any way, shape or form in this budget,” he added.
In his budget message, Mr. Cherepko touched on the McKeesport Rising Project, which was a $2.5 million line item in the 2018 budget set aside to target blight and improve neighborhoods and infrastructure.
Currently the city has about 300 homes under contract to be demolished with a goal for the structures to be down by the middle of 2019.
Council also voted to continue its garbage and recycling contract with Big’s Sanitation of Belle Vernon through the end of 2019 at a cost of $109 per ton, a savings of about $3 per ton from the current year.
Mr. Cherepko said he asked Big’s to cut its rates for 2019, which the company did — bringing the rate to the 2015 level. He said residents had many complaints over the past year about their garbage service.
He said the city currently pays about $1.4 million per year for garbage/recycling collection. According to his budget message, the city’s hauling and landfill costs associated with garbage collection is not entirely covered by the municipal service fee paid by residents. All owner-occupied residences pay a $300 per year municipal service fee that’s billed quarterly.
Mr. Cherepko said because of the rising costs of contracting garbage and recycling to an outside company that starting in 2020, “I think we have no option but to go into the garbage business for ourselves.”
He said that by having existing public works employees with commercial drivers’ licenses drive trucks and hiring help to empty bins into the trucks, the city could break even or end up saving money on hauling.
He added that starting sometime in 2019 he plans to have the city take over the recycling.
“It will be a good way to try to get our feet wet,” he said.
Deana Carpenter, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
First Published: December 11, 2018, 7:19 p.m.
