Masontown council to consider laying off entire police force
The Masontown Borough Council will vote later this month on whether to lay off the borough’s police force as part of a push to reduce — and perhaps eventually eliminate — the borough’s property taxes.
The council voted 6-1 Monday night to add a resolution on the Jan. 13 meeting agenda that would remove all department personnel from the payroll. It has yet to be determined if the department would be formally disbanded, said council President John Stoffa.
The department includes a full-time police chief and one full-time officer, and part-time officers, though Stoffa wasn’t certain how many.
That full-time officer had just been hired in December. Since then, Stoffa said, the composition of the council has shifted dramatically: three new members were elected in November, and another was appointed last night.
Stoffa said council members hope to cut the 2027 property tax by 50% to 60%. The borough’s tax rate is several times higher than some neighboring municipalities, he said. Excluding Masontown, the average millage rate in the Albert Gallatin School District is 2.02 mills, dropping to as low as 0.6302 mills in Springhill Township.
“We have the highest property taxes in the Albert Gallatin School District,” Stoffa said. “We have some of the highest municipal tax rates in the county. We want to cut taxes.”
Nearly all of the revenue from the borough’s 5.9264 mills of property tax had gone to the department, which had an annual budget of around $485,000, he said.
If the borough has no police staff, Stoffa said the Pennsylvania State Police would provide law enforcement services.
Property tax millage also provides $5,000 annually to the borough’s library and fire department, though those services would be maintained, Stoffa said.
The vote against adding the layoffs to the January agenda came from Councilwoman Nanette Cochrane. She said Tuesday her vote reflected what she’d heard in the community about the continued need for the department.
“I asked if this could be put on the ballot,” she said. “Let the people vote. … I do talk to people. Not every single person in Masontown, but the vast majority, do want to have the police. That’s what you’re there for. You’re there to represent the people.”
If the officers are laid off, it might be difficult to restore the department if residents and future councils decide they want to restaff, Cochrane said.
She suggested the council could consider partially reducing the force and a smaller tax reduction.
“I thought it should be talked about a little bit more,” she said. “I do believe there’ll be more people at this next meeting to vocalize, and maybe there’ll be people for the other side too.”
Stoffa said the council had also been motivated by the need to pay down debt. The borough has $3.9 million in municipal authority and sewage debt, and $484,000 of debt related to the municipal building, including a new roof and air conditioning.
Long-term, Stoffa said, he and some other council members hope to abolish property taxes for Masontown entirely. It would be the only municipality in Fayette County, and possibly in the commonwealth, to do so, he said.
“Some of us on council have a political philosophy: Once you own your property, you should not be paying the government rent,” he said. “You own it, it’s yours.”
The borough’s remaining sources of revenue include the Liquid Fuels Fund, local earned income tax and water and sewage revenues put back into those services.
“In the past, money was taken from those operations for other borough functions, and the infrastructure suffered,” Stoffa said. “For the last few years, we got everybody on board to leave the water money with water, sewer with sewer, so those infrastructures can be modernized and maintained properly.”