11:00	Joe Sestak	U.S. Congress
11:15	Carol Aichele & Terence Farrell	Republican Candidates County Commissioner
11:30	Joy Bergey	PennFuture PA Interfaith Climate Change Campaign
11:45	Kathi Cozzone & Bill Scott	Democrat Candidates County Commissioner
12:00	Dianne Herrin	Borough Leaders United for Emissions Reduction
12:15	Richard Whiteford	Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club (Al Gore-trained presenter)
12:30	Duncan Allison	Brandywine Valley Association effects on our region's groundwater
12:45	Sam Cantrell	Maysies Farm Conservation Center local, sustainable farms
1:00	Jerry Dale	Morvent Services, Inc. geothermal heating & cooling systems
1:15	Charles Reichner	Heat Shed, Inc. solar power
1:30	Richard Whiteford	Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club effects on animals, plants
1:45	Barbara McIlvaine Smith	State Representative Energy Independence Strategy

Right: Dr. Samuel Christian Schmucker. Photo from Centennial History of West Chester State College by Russell Sturzebecker, page 227.

Dr. Davis is a "Distinguished Professor of the History of Science at Messiah College" and has received a National Science Foundation grant to study the religious beliefs of American scientists in the 1920s. That led him to Schmucker's writings, and a publication about Schmucker which has appeared in American Scientist. His talk at West Chester University is sponsored by the West Chester University Society for Philosophical Study of Religion, Science and Asian Thought, and was arranged by Dr. Anthony Nicastro, chair of the Physics Department.

Additional information about the event can be obtained from Dr. C. Jack Orr of the WCU Department of Communications Studies by calling 302-475-2179.

WCJIM did not make it to the County's budget hearing two nights later, but he read about it in the Daily Local News on November 15. Apparently only three taxpayers attended that meeting, which revealed that the County plans to increase spending next year by 3.9% without raising property taxes. Since the Borough expects spending to increase by less than half as much (1.7%), yet plans to pay for it with a 7.5% property tax increase and a 15% sewer rate increase, that raised a question: are the County Commissioners magicians, or is there something fundamentally different about County and Borough financing?

To learn more, WCJIM looked closely at both entities' proposed budgets, which list revenues and expenses broken down by department and by line item. As you might expect, the number of pages is proportional to the size of the budget. The Borough's $16.3 million budget is laid out in 16 pages, or roughly one page per million dollars. The County's $456 million budget fills an oversized 3-ring binder and contains about 80 pages of details about revenue and about 400 pages on expenses. So the "one page per million rule" seems to hold in both cases.

Another difference is in the range of fees that each government is allowed to collect. To put it simply, the County gets to charge for many more things, since it is a much larger entity that provides more kinds of services. All of the "row offices" appear as revenue generators on the County budget, and the 2008 proposal projects revenue increases from the Recorder of Deeds (about $250,000), the Prothonotary (about $200,000), the County Detectives (around $140,000), the Coroner (just under $24,000), the District Attorney (almost $14,000) and so on. At the Borough, the only fees that are expected to show an increase are beverage permits (up $1,500), the amount that East Bradford pays for Borough police services (just over $150,000), "Other Police Services" ($3,000), income from Recreation Department events ($27,500), and "Miscellaneous" ($90,000). The Borough will also get some help from the Departments of Building, Housing & Codes Enforcement, which is asking for nearly $20,000 less than in 2007, the Parking Department, which is asking for about $33,000 less, and the Recreation Department (down $37,000).

The other major source of revenue is grants, and here the County has a clear advantage. The County's proposed budget includes a category called "Revenues and Other Funding Sources" that is projected to rise by more than 61% next year. It took some digging through many pages of line items to determine what this category really contains, but apparently it includes revenue from federal and state sources. One item (department #490000, account #331200) will increase by over $770,000 next year, and there is plenty of movement in both directions on other items, but the budget assumes an overall increase of $3.8 million next year. The Borough receives far less money from state and federal sources (although it does receive some from grant programs administered by the County). For 2008, the Borough expects no change in state and federal grants (still $56,867), and about $62,000 in additional state funds to support for the Borough's pension fund. That is good, since pension expenses are only projected to rise by about $50,000, but the state is also reducing the Borough's tax revenues by about $161,000 thanks to changes the legislature made in what used to be called "Emergency & Municipal Services Tax" (renamed "Local Services Tax").

To summarize the difference, the County budget relies on a wider variety of revenue sources and assumes that all of them will continue grow in proportion to the County's population. For some items, like fees received by the Prothonotary's office, that assumption is a good one, but it remains to be seen if property taxes and fees associated with real estate activity continue to increase at the same rate as in the past. If they do not, then expect next year's Commissioners to have to explain a ounty tax increase unless they can find another source to make up the difference. For the Borough, with a much more limited range of revenue sources and no way to gain benefit from rising real estate values, the only way to balance the budget is to increase tax rates or cut expenditures. Expenditures have been discussed elsewhere on this web page, and during the discussion at last week's budget meeting, Council members made some fairly painful cuts. No doubt, the County is facing the same problems as the Borough, such as rising fuel and building material prices, increases in the cost of insurance, and reduced state aid for employee pension funds, but the County derives economic benefits from local development that are not available to the Borough.

But the "friendly approach" is not easy, and not even practical for everyone. As a large, self-assured white male with a lot of experience dealing with people, I am better equipped to talk with strangers than, for example, an 80-year old widow who is in poor health. Recognizing that difference, District Justice Gwenn Knapp has taken a step towards instituting the "friendly approach" in the sentencing of nuisance offenders aged 18 to 24. Using grant money from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, and a program developed by the Center for Resolutions, she has won approval for a one-year pilot program called "Young Adult Community Conference." The YACC requires selected offenders to meet with trained community members and facilitators to talk about their offense, find out how it affected the neighbors, and create a "sentencing contract."

But will it work? That is the point of the one-year pilot project -- to test it out -- but according to Judge Knapp, "prior experiments with meaningful alternative sentencing for 18-to-24 year-olds reduced the recidivism rate by 50%." In other words, offenders who were required to perform "meaningful" tasks were half as likely to commit another offense than those who simply received fines.

"But is it really that bad?" ask some. WCJIM is the kind of person who rolls over and goes back to sleep, so he and his marriage survived six years living less than two blocks from Jake's Bar. But the first time he slept on the west side of town, he was astounded to wake up, not to the sound of drunk voices or morning rush hour traffic, but to birds chirping in the park across the street. It confirms that you can't always appreciate what you have until you have to live without it.

NOTE: To volunteer for the YACC, contact Bridget Carroll of the Center For Resolution by phone (610-566-8810, ext. 105) or email.