Employees Get Raises, Taxpayers Face 3.5% Tax Hike

Two financially significant votes happened at Monday night's council meeting.

First, council voted to advertise a $52.6 million budget that, if left unchanged, would raise taxes by 3.49 percent.

Much later, council voted on a new two-year contract with the non-police union workers who are part of AFSCME, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The contract, which the workers approved Nov. 10, will provide 2 percent raises in the first year and 1.5 percent raises in the second year and will add $56,444.93 to the payroll.

Some of that increase will be off-set by savings on health care costs, said Borough Manager Mark Flanders, although it is too early in the year to say how much.

Councilman Dennis Arms cast the sole vote against both measures.

Council also undertook its first-ever employee recognition event, honoring employees with as little as five and as many as 40 years of service to the borough.

"Tonight we recognized 950 person years of service," Councilman Dan Weand said. "We must be doing something right if employees are staying this long."

I'll just leave that one there without further comment.

Council also entertain a significant offer from Pottstown School Board member Thomas Hylton.

The former chairman of the disbanded Pottstown Shade Tree Commission, Hylton said he and his wife Frances are willing to donate $50,000 toward the cost of removing dead street trees in the borough, but only if they can be replaced with new trees.

We'll see how that turns out.

In the meantime, here are the Tweets,,