Photo by Joseph Bell
Elk County Commissioner June H. Sorg, center, discusses several key priorities for 2009 while fellow commissioners Daniel R. Freeburg, left, and Ronald T. Beimel listen.

By Joseph Bell

Record Staff Writer

At yesterday morning’s Elk County Board of Commissioners meeting, the elected officials discussed several key 2009 county government priorities which were recently collected from county leaders throughout Pennsylvania.
“County leaders throughout Pennsylvania have unveiled their list of 2009 key government priorities and this is done annually,” said June H. Sorg, current board chairperson. “We feel that it’s very important to have these priorities so that we can work with the legislators, having them understand what they would pass as a state and how it would affect the county.”
The priorities include funding for local roads, bridges and mass transit, among others.
“One of the first priorities would be tax fairness,” Sorg said. “This is my fifth term that I’ve been here and we have fought for this since I have started as a commissioner and it’s very important that the county have some other means to tax people besides the real estate tax.”
According to Sorg, constituents across the county have faced difficulty in paying their taxes in a timely manner.
“People shouldn’t have to be afraid that they’re going to lose their homes because they can’t pay their taxes,” Sorg said. “We feel that, as a county, we should be able to choose our options. There have to be other options out there that could be a means to tax people other than the real estate tax.”
Sorg said that a loss of funds for the county has also hindered normal proceedings.
“Some of the other problems and issues that we feel may affect the county is the commonwealth budget,” Sorg said. “There’s a definite scare with loss of funds for our county, not only just from some of the changes, especially on the human service side, our Children & Youth (Services), mental health, mental retardation, as well as drug and alcohol (programs) are going to see some cuts and we’re hoping that the services can continue.”
With recent economy trends, Sorg said human services have suffered.
“With the economy and the way things are going, we find that the human services are probably the most used services by our local people, so we’re concerned about the loss of funding for those different areas,” Sorg said.
The chairperson also discussed the recent lawsuit filed by the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) against state officials.
“As I mentioned before, the state association has filed a suit on the state concerning not only the judicial positions that we have that should be reimbursed by the state, but also the district attorney funding,” Sorg said. “So that’s part of the priorities for the legislators.”
Sorg also said that county officials also aspire to strengthen 911 services and are seeking to reauthorize the $2 recycling fee.
“We had a $2 fee that was coming to the county to help pay for all of our recycling and there isn’t a lot of money being made with the recycling but it’s important not to send those things to a landfill,” Sorg said. “If they would bring those things back again, it would definitely help with all of our recycling costs that we have.”
And for 2009, Sorg said county officials will pay close attention to its budget.
“Those are some things that have really affected the county and will really affect the county budget for 2009, so we’re looking very close at this budget,” Sorg said. “This coming year is very difficult for the county to keep everything afloat because we won’t be getting any of our tax dollars until March and we’re seeing more and more people not able to pay their taxes, which is hard for everyone.”