South Strabane sets goals
South Strabane supervisors met Monday afternoon for a workshop meeting to set goals through 2019, including improving the township’s finances and gaining input and communication from residents.
Township Manager Brandon Stanick provided the supervisors with seven major goals that fall “in line with” the township’s new comprehensive plan, adopted in November. He called the goals “ambitious” and listed them in no particular order of priority.
The first is to provide support to the comprehensive plan implementation committee, which would include updating the zoning map, which hasn’t been updated since 2008 and is “difficult to use,” Stanick said.
The second goal, which all of the supervisors were enthusiastic about, is to improve communication with residents and businesses by updating the township’s website and conducting a townshipwide, mailed survey to evaluate services.
“Having these surveys is a really good idea,” Supervisor Laynee Zipko said. “We need to really listen to these people and encourage people to give their opinions. We need to know how everybody in the township thinks.”
Another goal that resonated with all of the supervisors was improving the financial management and reporting, which Stanick said would include establishing policies for purchasing, investment and debt service. He also said the goal includes increasing transparency with updates to the township’s budget document, and strategizing about additional revenue possibilities and cost reductions.
“We have tremendous budget constraints this year,” Supervisor Robert Weber said. “Until we get back on track, we need to tighten our belts.”
Supervisor Richard Luketich said the township will have a better idea of where it stands with costs for the next few years after it completes contract negotiations with the police and public works departments.
He also mentioned the high cost to the township last year for overtime pay to the fire department. He and Supervisor Bracken Burns both were in favor of exploring the option of a regional fire department.
“A regional fire service – that is the future,” Burns said. “There has to be a pulling of resources from municipalities.”
Burns also said that the chiefs and department heads should have to provide a written explanation each time an employee collects overtime.
As another cost-saving measure, Burns said the township should evaluate its bills to see what services need to be bid every few years and adopt a policy on rebidding expired contracts.
The fourth goal is to use technology to create efficiencies and improve security by digitizing documents, and the fifth is to evaluate the township’s parks and recreation programs.
Stanick said the township’s parks need to be evaluated for maintenance and given a 5- to 10-year capital improvement plan so the township has a better chance at securing grants. Luketich said he’d like to see the township hire a parks manager.
“We can’t afford that right now, but maybe down the road,” he said.
Burns suggested possibly working with local colleges to offer seasonal internships to students to survey and maintain the parks.
The sixth goal is to evaluate the township’s personnel policies and job descriptions and update them as necessary, along with surveying personnel salaries.
Lastly, the supervisors want to analyze the services provided by the township and consider a single garbage and recycling hauler.
Burns said the township has an “unacceptable” amount of residents who don’t recycle.
“I would love to know the percentage of our residents who throw the garbage in with recycling,” he said. “This is a bright idea, it is a good thing, but it also happens to be the law.”
Stanick said he will bring back to the board a more prioritized list based on Monday’s conversation.
“It seems like the board is secure with what we have here,” Stanick said after the meeting. “We can come back and prioritize these. I’d like to have marching orders for the next 18 months.”