Liz Allen's parting advice: How City Council can move Erie forward

Editor's note: Liz Allen resigned from Erie City Council on Jan. 4. Here she offers advice to City Council based on what she learned during her time in office. You can read about her reasons for leaving City Council in a separate column published on GoErie.com at http://bit.ly/3DyxX4l.

In February 2017, I decided to run for Erie City Council for three reasons: my book club friends encouraged me, the Women's March inspired me and several business leaders asked me.

Six years later, I resigned — discouraged, dispirited and disillusioned.

I can't change the personalities or the lofty political aspirations of some council members, factors that directly influenced my decision to quit.

More:Liz Allen, citing frustration with politics, colleagues, resigns from Erie City Council

But I remain optimistic that Erie City Council can be a force for progress in our community. On Feb. 9, council will select one of 19 applicants to replace me for the remainder of this year. In the May municipal primary, there will be four seats on the ballot — three four-year seats and one two-year seat, to complete what would have been my term.

Fresh faces can make a difference. But more change is needed. Council must improve communication with Mayor Joe Schember's administration, seek out training and continuing education opportunities for themselves and tame the structural deficit.

Education, communication vital to good government

I am confident that Schember's decision to hire a communications director will improve the internal news flow and bolster external community engagement. Council members often complained about feeling left out of the loop in decision-making, especially when it came to allocating American Rescue Plan funding.

There's no excuse if council members ignore the memos and spreadsheets that the administration regularly provides to council.

But council members who work full-time can't attend weekly Zoom briefings with the mayor. A short newsletter recapping the briefing topics for council members would be helpful. A quick-read email can build on the actions that Police Chief Dan Spizarny, Fire Chief Joe Walko and Citizen Relations Coordinator Mas Sala took to provide regular updates to council on crime statistics, fire calls and citizen complaints.

Erie will also be revamping the city's website, to make it more user-friendly for the public and, I hope, create the tools to make government more efficient. I'm no webmaster but I've done enough poking around municipal websites to know that I like www.cityoflancasterpa.gov and www.southbendin.gov because the homepages give quick links to information on everything from trash pickup to street closures to public meeting dates and times.

Onboarding and then regular training for new and seasoned council members would also be helpful. After Kathy Schaaf and I were elected, we participated in the Pennsylvania Municipal League's training for newly elected officials, where we learned a lot of general information. But we discovered most of what we learned about specific city operations by attending board and authority meetings and introducing ourselves to department heads.

Council members, potential volunteers for boards and authorities and future candidates could benefit from a civic academy that explains how local government works.

What's the responsibility of the Blighted Property Review Commission? What powers does the Zoning Hearing Board have? How do you apply if you'd like to serve on the Erie Water Authority, the Erie Regional Airport Authority, the Historic Review Commission or the new Environmental Advisory Council? Council appoints members to those bodies and others, while the mayor appoints to such groups as the City Planning Commission, the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Erie and the Erie Parking Authority.

Some authorities have a combination of appointers, including the mayor, Erie County Council, even the governor (to the Erie Convention Center Authority, for example). Council members and the public should know how boards, authorities and commissions work, because that's where many of the power brokers and much of the decision-making rests in Erie.

Of course, one of the most important functions that City Council has is to monitor city finances and approve the annual budget. There is no sugarcoating the fact that the city has a structural deficit that is projected to grow from $2.26 million in 2024 to $11.07 million in 2027, according to the 2023 budget.

More:Consultant: Erie must grow income, control worker costs

Council should revisit PFM report, act to confront structural deficit

As outgoing City Council president, I urged my colleagues to make it a priority this year to read and act on numerous recommendations from the "City of Erie, Pennsylvania Five-Year Financial Management Plan," which PFM Group Consulting provided to the administration and council on Feb. 18, 2020. The report predates the pandemic but most of the recommendations remain relevant. Council could create a tracking system as each idea is explored, adopted, deemed worthy of further study or rejected.

More:Erie City Council approves $97.6 million budget after netting $800,000 savings

Here are some interesting ideas I found in the PFM report, worthy for deliberation and possible action in 2023:

• Make the execution of a financial agreement between the City of Erie and the Erie Parking Authority a top priority in early 2023.

• Examine revenue and expenditures for golf course operations (specifically, Downing). Note: The city of Corry has created a Golf Commission to relieve the city budget of those expenses.

• Study whether the operations of Erie Water Works (operated by an independent authority) and the Wastewater Treatment Plant (run by the city) should be combined. Likely controversial but worth a look.

• Institute a defined contribution plan instead of defined benefit plan (pension) for management employees.

• Report on Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) outcomes to date. Are LERTA recipients from previous years paying the full assessed value now or have they sought an assessment reduction? Examine the LERTA application fee ($25) to see if it reflects costs.

• Seek out additional Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreements.

• Establish or refine guidelines for a fund for contributions to the city (contributions from businesses and non-profits have been used in the past for capital expenses/improvements).

• Audit the Amusement Tax, currently 3%. A previous budget proposal by the administration to raise amusement tax to 5% was withdrawn but with COVID restrictions eased or erased, it might be time to reconsider to capturing more revenue from those outside the city who enjoy Erie's arts, culture and sports venues.

• Recover reimbursements from insurance companies for first-responder calls by the fire department.

• Institute a street light assessment.

• Review observations/suggestions about tracking police overtime and the function of the police civilians.

• Automate the payroll system. Can all checks be moved to automatic deposit?

I then outlined nine more ways to address budget issues:

1. Ask PFM to re-engage with council. This would require a big fee but there may be grants to pay for additional consulting work.

2. Move payments of various fees online. Find a solution so that property taxpayers who pay early to receive a 2% discount don't have to end up paying a 3% transaction charge when they use a credit/debit card.

3. Make an aggressive move to consider proposals to reduce the waste stream and save on tipping fees, as recommended by a recent report by Penn State Behrend students.

4. Engage with the Beehive Network to move forward on selling city's compost, as suggested by Councilman Ed Brzezinski. How does Millcreek do it? The City of Milwaukee has been selling Milorganite, (made from waste products, not compost), for years.

5. Establish a housing/blight court. One goal would be to address the cost of cleanouts dropped on the curb that the city's garbage haulers must remove, for example. City Planner Dave Forrest is moving forward with this recommendation, which comes from the city's 2016 comprehensive plan, "Erie Refocused."

6. Examine city meeting schedule to reduce need for security coverage (the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Erie has already moved its meetings to mid-afternoon from late afternoon). Perhaps City Council's night meetings could begin earlier than the current time of 7:30 p.m. Some councils in Pennsylvania meet as early as 6 p.m.

7. Examine travel expense policies. Consider corporate credit cards instead of cash advances. Institute a travel reimbursement policy.

8. Consider a Home Rule Charter Commission, which, if approved, could lead to additional revenue options for the city.

9. Join cooperative efforts to support a regional district tax to pay for regional assets, such as the Erie Zoo, which is hurting for operational expenses. Pittsburgh is only municipality statewide that has this option.

Liz Allen, a former reporter and editor at the Erie Times-News, fell head over heels for Excel when she was administrative editor, responsible for overseeing the newsroom budget. She finds creating spreadsheets almost as much fun as writing stories.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Liz Allen offers advice on what City Council should do to advance Erie