Although the Borough's 2006 budget is already in place, this is the time of the year when Council receives end-of-the-year reports from its department heads. Last Tuesday (March 8), members of the Finance Committee reviewed the Borough Treasurer's report for 2005 -- a five page document that described the revenues and expenditures for the five largest components of the Borough's annual budget. [View budget summary]

Since most readers only hear about budget issues when one candidate tries to use it to discredit another one (or a newspaper looks for a juicy headline), here is a brief explanation of why the process is so imprecise. By state law, Borough Council has to approve a budget for the following year before the end of December or the current year. That means that department heads have to decide what they will need next year before this year is even two-thirds over, and then present their requests to Borough Council committees in August. Council then estimates what sort of money the Borough will have to spend next year (again based on incomplete information from the current year), and the two sides -- Council and department heads -- go back and forth until they reach some sort of agreement in November. That provides a month to advertise the proposed budget, as required by law, so that Council can approve it at its December meeting.

Sound simple? It is -- all except for that "estimating" task. To give you an idea of what that entails, here are some excerpts from the Borough treasurer's end of the year (2005) report. These concern elements of the General Fund which makes up the largest part of the Borough's overall budget:

This section of the report concludes: "Overall, the General Fund is balanced on a delicate basis each year. Fortunately, for those categories on the revenue side that don't meet budget, there are usually categories that exceed budget and make up the difference. This may not always be the case. In relative numbers, it remains difficult to project some line items as the budget exceeds $15,000,000 annually and a swing of $500,000 represents only 4% of the budget. We will be very careful to continue to monitor our revenue stream and control our expense spending throughout the 2006 year."

The Sewer Fund is administered separately from General Fund and depends on sewer fees and "tap-in" fees to pay for maintenance and upgrade of the system. According to the reasurer's report, sewer revenues "are budgeted on a historical basis and represent sewer taps in the township. We finished the year considerably under budget. Sewer taps are a guess at best and we try to budget on a historical basis. We have seen some years as high as $700,000 along with low years such as 2005. We reduced the budget in 2006 to $100,000 vs. our normal $200,000 and expect to exceed this as we already have some feel for a better year according to our MIPP coordinator." Sewer expenses "came in under budget by some $251,000, offsetting somewhat a dismal revenue picture. Sewer plant management monitors expenses very closely and is to be commended.

The Parking Fund is also administered separately. Parking meter revenues were "much lower than budgeted due to many factors. We removed over 90 meters resulting in a loss of $95,000, mostly for the old Lot 4, the new Justice Center property. We also had to convert many of our old meters to new digital meters, resulting in down time, lost revenue, and an expense of over $65,000." On the other hand, the parking garages yielded about $64,000 more than expected "as the parking manager made changes and controlled expenses and the Borough increased monthly permit sales." Two other funds, the Capital Improvement Fund and the Highway Aid Fund, both performed as expected.

The Borough of West Chester spends and receives about $25 million dollars each year. That is made up of literally thousands of items, each of which is subject to change due to decisions made by individual taxpayers and their employers, developers and other businesses, the University, courts, and the three levels of government above the Borough -- county, state and federal government. State law requires the Borough to submit a budget in advance, which is a good way to force local government to examine how it spends money and to prepare plans for what it wants to do in the future. The result is at best a collection of educated guesses which is much easier to criticize than it is to critique.

If it seems like WCJIM is preoccupied with the County's plan to buy new voting machines, there's a good reason for that. In the past four months, this journal has offered five articles (see "County & State") about the threat to democracy that has been created by the 2002 "Help America to Vote Act." Well, intrepid readers, the end is in sight, at least here in Chester County. The County Commissioners will make their selection on Thursday, March 16 at their 10AM meeting.

Sadly, even this late in the game, no one knows for sure whether they will do the right thing. Andrew Dinniman, the lone Democrat on the three-person board, has stated repeatedly that he will only vote for machines that also provide a "paper trail" -- essential to verify the results of a election in case it is contested. But Commissioners Carol Aichele and Don Mancini, both Republicans, have vacillated and asserted most recently that they are prepared to vote for the purchase of "DRE machines" -- machines that record each vote directly using software and generate a total at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, if the software of a DRE machine has been corrupted, there is no way to know without taking it apart and handing the components to computer scientists for study. Given the number of irregularities that were detected in such machines in Florida and Ohio in 2004, many people including state officials are concerned. Last week, the lower house of the Maryland state legislature voted to require the purchase of machines that provide a paper trail, while throughout the country local leaders, judges and community activists have organized to stop what many are calling "the hijacking of democracy."

WCJIM has already sounded off on this topic in a statement made to the County Commissioners at last November's public hearing. Enroute to becoming a professional historian, he earned a masters degree by studying the history of modern Germany, including the methods by which the National Socialist Democratic Workers Party (a.k.a. the NSDAP or Nazi) turned Germany -- a modern, industrialized country with a rich culture and a democratic government -- into a one- party police state. Although the United States in 2006 is not the same as Germany in the late 1920s, there have been disturbing signs for the past half dozen years that some people are willing to take the country in the same direction. Rigging elections and making the fraud undetectable is one way to pull it off, since there will no longer be any way to determine what voters really want. We will continue to have something that resemble elections but our votes will only be used to ratify choices made for us.

If you are concerned, then you can do two things between now and Thursday morning. First, call 610-344-6100, fax 610-344-5995, or email Carol Aichele and Donald Mancini.

Second, attend Thursday's Commissioners meeting at 10AM in the Board Room of the County Courthouse, 5th Floor, North Wing, located at 2 North High Street in West Chester.

According to information collected by WCU student Charlotte Bridges, change began in 1885 with the creation of the West Chester Board of Health. The Board persuaded Borough Council to regulate trash collection in 1886 by installing public trash cans at the end of each street and using horse-drawn carts to collect solid waste on a regular schedule. They dumped their loads in a Borough dump until it became filled in 1900. Borough considered purchasing a garbage incinerator like that used in Wilmington, Delaware, but then decided to allow local hog farmers to buy it for use as feed. In 1912, Lewis Hickman, a farmer who lived just west of Bradford Avenue, received the exclusive contract to all of the Borough's garbage.

The Borough continued to deposit solid waste in empty lots located around town. In the 1930s, they used a lot on S. Franklin Street that is now the Green Field sports stadium. In the 1940s, they switched to a former brickyard located on E. Nields Street which later became the site of the Wyeth-Ayerst factory. In the early 1950s, they used an abandoned quarry on W. Chester Street located near the Italian Social Club. All this time, Borough officials continued to discuss buying a trash incinerating plant, but never mustered the votes to make it happen.

By then, it was apparent to most that change was on its way. In 1951 the Borough resumed the use of contractors to collect trash and ashes (a separate category of rubbish that resulted from the extensive use of coal stoves in Borough homes), but Council minutes show repeated problems with staffing and frequency -- the Borough provided two pickups per week in those days -- that led to a high rate of turnover by the private haulers.

Trash collection became even more of a problem in 1954 after the state legislature passed a law that prohibited feeding raw (i.e. uncooked) garbage to livestock. In the 1960s, environmental concerns led to a ban on "burn barrels" (50-gallon drums used by individuals to burn paper and other solid waste). The Borough population was also growing in this period, and as the volume of trash increased and the options for legal disposal decreased, the Borough resumed collecting trash with its own trucks and employees.

In January 1970, Borough Council passed a comprehensive trash ordinance which provided one trash pickup per week and penalties for disposing of trash improperly. That created a need for enforcement and led to demands for the Borough to hire a "Codes Enforcement Officer." Roy Helms, the Borough's Housing Officer, assumed that additional responsibility in 1974, but after he left the Borough in 1981, Council debated for nearly two years before filling the vacancy.

Trash disposal costs remained a problem throughout the 1980s -- a a decade in which solid waste disposal fees rose from $6 to $43 per ton -- and in 1987, West Chester Borough began a voluntary trash recycling program for one third of the Borough's households. While it reduced disposal costs, it also showed that some people refused to participate, so in 1989 Council made the program mandatory for the entire Borough in 1989.

Costs continued to rise, however, so in 1992, Council convened a "Blue Ribbon Financial Committee" chaired by former County Commission Patrick O'Donnell. The Committee recommended, among other ideas, charging a separate fee for collecting trash, and concluded "that Borough Council is facing a remarkably difficult situation with very few choices available." In October, Council voted to solicit bids from private haulers and in December awarded a three-year contract to BFI (Browning- Ferris). That created something of an uproar because it also resulted in the lay-off of four Public Works employees.

In 1993, Council amended the trash ordinance again, increasing the number of bulk trash pickup from two a year to once a month. They also doubled the size of public trash containers in the downtown, and added a program to collect brush and tree limbs. Two years later when the trash hauling contract came up for renewal, Council had to request bids twice before accepting the low bid from J. P. Mascaro & Sons of Bridgeport for another three years.

Unfortunately, Mascaro's service prompted numerous complaints from Borough residents, so that in October 1998, Councilmember Anne Carroll proposed that the Borough resume collecting its own trash. After much discussion, Council voted to buy a pair of trash trucks and take over the service itself.

That led to the current situation in which the Borough's own Public Works employees collect regular trash once a week, bulk trash once a month and leaf and garden waste on a seasonal basis. Meanwhile, landfill costs continued to climb while the Borough's recycling rate declined over the past several years, so the new trash program was adopted last December as a way to control costs.

For roughly 80% of Borough households, the new program will require little change. Those are the households that average less than two cans of trash per week -- the main thing that they will have to do differently is make sure that they keep their yard waste -- grass clippings and brush trimmings -- separate from the rest of their trash. For those of the other 20% who are not currently using private trash haulers on their own, they will have to either reduce the amount of trash they put out or else start paying $2.50 for specially-marked bags in which to dispose of their excess trash.

In the not-too-distant future, Magrogan will appear before the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board to argue for permission to bring a second liquor license into the Borough (see related article). Between now and then, he needs to find a way to undue the damage, not only to his own reputation, but also to the Borough's efforts to promote responsible drinking.