Manager, police chief awarded pay raises
Council approves budget with 3.83 percent tax hike
POTTSTOWN >> It only took about 30 minutes Monday night, Dec. 9, for Pottstown Borough Council to spend more than $45.6 million.
It happened when council unanimously adopted the $45,618,671 budget for 2020 as advertised.
It will raise property taxes by 3.83 percent.
The budget will impose a 2020 real estate tax millage of 13.161 mills, up from the current 12.675 mills.
For a borough property assessed at $85,000, that works out to an annual increase of $41.30 on the tax bill, according to information posted on
the borough website.
Borough tax bills for 2020 will go into the mail on March 1.
No one from the public showed up to speak in favor or against the budget.
No one on council had any questions or comments about next year’s tax and spend plan before voting.
The same could be said for two additional surprise additions to the agenda of the last meeting of 2019.
Borough Police Chief Michael Markovich received an 8 percent pay raise for a one-year contract extension, pushing his salary from the current $110,000 to $118,720 in 2020.
Borough Manager Justin Keller, who was making $107,000 this year, got a new three-year contract.
It carries raises of 3 percent in 2020, 4 percent in 2021 and 5 percent in 2022, according to Borough Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr. who explained the specifics of both contracts only after council had already voted.
Keller was first hired in 2016 as assistant borough manager to then-borough manager Mark Flanders. His salary at that point was $78,000.
Keller became interim borough manager on Jan. 1, 2018 when Flanders, a former police chief, retired as borough manager.
It was August of last year when the “interim” was removed from Keller’s title, as was the clause that required that he live in the borough and he was awarded a contract that expires this month.
That same night, Markovich also had the “interim” removed from his title of police chief, a post he inherited from predecessor Rick Drumheller, who retired in July of 2018, 18 months early.
Taken together, the two votes will add up to an additional $22,069 Pottstown taxpayers will pay in salary over the next three years.
But that pales in comparison to the tax impact of the five-year police contract council approved unanimously last night, again with no comment from the public and no comment or question from council members.
That contract will provide more than 18 percent in raises over its five-year term and will add more than $750,000 to the police budget by the fifth year.
In exchange, the Pottstown Police Officers Association agreed to end its post retirement health care for new employees.
That benefit has ballooned over the years into a liability of almost $29 million by the end of 2017, which requires an annual contribution of $2.3 million, according to a May report on Pottstown’s finances.
“From 2014 to 2018, retiree benefit expenses have increased by 46 percent. Retiree benefits are predominately comprised of retiree health insurance costs,” the report’s authors wrote in May.
Finance Director Janice Lee, who retires early next year, said it may take 20 years before the financial benefit of eliminating postretirement health care for police officers is realized.
The police defined benefit pension remains firmly in place however, another financial factor which has generated rising costs for borough taxpayers. This year, combined pension liability payments for police and non-uniformed employees added $1 million to the expense column.
Although the police pension is the same, the nonuniformed borough workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees agreed to implement a less expensive defined contribution pension plan for new employees hired after Jan. 1 in the three-year contract they signed with the borough in September.
Another unanimous vote council took last night implemented the ordinance putting that new AFSCME pension plan in place.