Oct 28, 2017 3 min read

Washington County’s preliminary general fund budget of $89.37 million features no tax increase for 2018.

The 82-page document reflects a tax levy that will remain at 2.43 mills.

Absent from the budget is any category labeled “Washington County Health Center.” Approximately $9 million had been transferred since 2012 to keep the 288-bed facility up and running, leading the commissioners to place the property on the market. A closing on the $26.9 million sale with Premier Healthcare Management LLC of Philadelphia was to be finalized Oct. 20, but that transaction may now take place as late as Dec. 1. To date, the county has received $2.5 million from Premier.

Costs in other areas continue to climb. The public safety category, for example, which includes probation departments and the jail, went up by $483,000, said Joshua Hatfield, Washington County finance director. The human services budget, which includes the Children and Youth and Aging services agencies, increased $660,000.

Because the county had not yet finished collective bargaining with members of its largest unions, members of the Service Employees International Union, no pay raises for hundreds of workers were included in the 2017 preliminary, posted and adopted budgets.

But because the county reached a new SEIU contract in March, the costs appear in the 2018 preliminary budget. 

SEIU members continued to work under the terms of a contract that expired Dec. 31, 2016, but the county in March bargained a new contract with SEIU Local 668, known as the “residual unit” for those who work at the downtown Washington complex. Health center employees received raises during the 10 or so months they were county employees. 

But these wages, raises and fringe benefits, known in fiscal lingo as “personal services,” increased across the board for 2017 for all employees and will continue to go up in 2018. The two-year total, pegged at $1.6 million, is included in the 2018 preliminary budget, but it actually reflects figures from this year and those projected for next year.

Health center employees are not included in the 2018 general fund budget, except for items such as potential unemployment compensation claims.

In other areas, costs did not rise as much as had been anticipated. The county had envisioned health insurance with Highmark might rise as much as 12 percent, its cap under its Highmark policy, but the increase instead totaled 9 percent.

The county also expects to save a bit more than $650,000 in 2018 on its Medicare supplement for retirees who are age 65 and older.      

Departmental budget hearings concluded Thursday afternoon with the elections office, where costs remain consistent or have increased slightly. Changes resulting from the sit-downs with department heads will be shown in the next version, known as the “posted budget.”

This document will be made available for public inspection in November, and the commissioners expect to adopt the 2018 general fund spending plan at their final scheduled meeting of the year, 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 21, on the first floor of the Courthouse Square office building.