PA Department Needs Large Budget Cut

Oct. 25 -- READING, PA -- The proposed 2019 budget for the Reading Fire Department is about $500,000 above what the city can spend to comply with Act 47, the state plan for distressed cities.

The city budget must be below the Act 47 cap to benefit from the protections afforded by the plan, according to testimony Wednesday at a City Council budget hearing for the police and fire departments.

City Controller Don Pottiger and Gordon Mann, a director of PFM, the firm appointed to guide the city out of Act 47, each said they are working with Chief William I. Stoudt Sr. to get his budget under the cap.

However, projected overtime increases for firefighters and paramedics are expected to exceed $600,000 in 2019.

A lot of those costs are associated with an inability to recruit and keep paramedics, Stoudt said.

Overtime pay for firefighters is budgeted to rise by 37.3 percent, from $440,890 this year to $605,420 in 2019. Overtime for paramedics is expected to be 91.5 percent higher in 2019, rising from $493,320 to $944,810.

Stoudt said he knew there wasn't funding available to hire more manpower to staff the busy night shift. He also proposed buying a fifth ambulance that would be staffed during peak periods by existing manpower.

Stoudt said ambulance calls have risen from 16,000 in 2012 to 20,000 in 2017.

"Another 25 percent increase by 2025 is simply not sustainable," said acting City Manager Osmer Deming. Deming said that Stoudt also should examine the calls to see if an ambulance response is actually needed.

Mann said as much as the new ambulance and manpower is needed, Stoudt is going to have to find a way to cut his budget to make room for the added expense.

"The problem is it puts the city over the cap in the recovery plan," Mann said. "You have to stay under to stay in the plan."

Cameras for police

Council got good news at the hearing when police Chief Andres Dominguez Jr. announced that by this time next year every officer would be outfitted with a body camera.

A push to get more surveillance cameras throughout the city is on the back burner for now, Dominguez said.

"We plan to purchase 125 cameras, one for every officer on patrol and a few extras," he said. "Citywide cameras? We're going to have to look into that a little more."

Dominguez said he has gotten requests to put cameras in certain neighborhoods. Right now, the cameras are concentrated in high-crime areas and downtown.

Council members asked the chief how much more surveillance cameras would cost.

"You guys want more cameras, and it is still being looked at, but you're talking millions of dollars," Dominguez said. "A project like that would have to be done in parts."

Deming said he has spoken to the city's information technology employees and they are talking about replacing older cameras with newer ones.

"The technology is advancing so quickly," Council President Jeffrey S. Waltman Sr. said.

Another problem is that the memory of the server used for the existing surveillance cameras is at capacity.

"We would first have to add more (memory) capacity," Pottiger said. "If we got more cameras we wouldn't have anything to hook them up to."

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