After six hearings that first began in early October, Northampton County has given its non-union workers and taxpayers an early Christmas present. Pennsylvania has now gone 162 days without a budget, but Northampton County Council approved a $360 million spending plan for next year by a 7-2 vote at its Dec. 3 meeting.

But taxpayers have been spared a tax increase.

In addition, the county was able to find money to provide its non-union workers a 4.5 percent wage hike. For the average Northampton County home, assessed at $58,800, it means a $693.84 tax bill.

This budget is the result of a collaborative effort by several county officials, Democrats and Republicans, a judge and a district attorney, and most of all, County Executive John Brown. Despite some significant differences, they were able to work together. This is how it happened.

Got ball rolling

This all started with President Judge Steve Baratta. At the first budget hearing, it is Baratta who told council about the “incredible salary compression” between nonunion and union employees. He said that juvenile center supervisors, who have gone years without a raise, make less money than the union employees they supervise. He persuaded Brown to go along with a 4.5 percent increase for his 78 non-union judicial employees.

Next, Northampton County DA John Morganelli picked up the banner for remaining nonunion workers who make up about 25 percent of the county’s 2,200-person workforce. He told council that these employees deserve recognition, too, and warned that assistant district attorneys who work under him could easily decide to go union and shackle the county with a 12th union. He stressed the need for “consistency.”

But Brown opposed a 4.5 percent across-the-board increase. He warned it would create a “precedent” and “set an expectation.” He said every percentage change in salary costs the county $1 million.

Kraft, Ferraro pitch

Ken Kraft, a business agent with the Painters’ Union, is Bethlehem’s representative on county council. He did some investigation and learned that the 4.5 percent increase would cost $438,000, about 1/10th what Brown had predicted. So he proposed a budget amendment for an across-the-board wage hike. He was joined, not just by his Democratic colleagues, but by Republican Council President Peg Ferraro, too. Without her support, he’d lack the five votes he would need for a budget amendment.

Ferraro was disturbed that the county has failed to do a pay study for years. Brown stated at the final budget hearing that such a pay study would be too costly.

The county’s 1991 Barstan study cost $40,000. Its 2008 Hay study cost $115,000.

Kraft and Ferraro got some help when about 15 non-union workers appeared at the final budget hearing to describe their situation. Cathy Kromer, a program specialist in mental health, provided each council member with her pay stubs from 2010 and 2015. In all that time, her bi-weekly take home pay has gone up only $100. She told council that inequities in Northampton County’s salary structure have caused “distrust, divides, animosity and friction.” She added that there have been no step increases over the past five years, and that the people she supervises are paid more than she.

Finally, on Dec. 3, the day before the county budget was scheduled for adoption, there was majority support for a 4.5 percent pay raise. But there was a new problem.

Kraft persuades Brown

That problem was the Home Rule Charter. When council votes to increase spending on raises or open space, it must reduce spending somewhere else. Kraft proposed taking this money from the money in the general fund left over from 2015, but Hayden Phillips and Brown both protested that is contrary to the Home Rule Charter.

Though he originally sided with Kraft, solicitor Phil Lauer did a complete about face just three hours before council was scheduled to convene.

“I do not believe that council can unilaterally access funds outside of the executive’s estimated revenues without the executive’s consent,” he advised. “The addition of expenditures can be accomplished by reducing other expenditures, or by reaching an understanding with the executive regarding an increase in revenue.”

Lauer’s opinion would kill the pay raise unless Brown could be persuaded to agree to the change.

About 30 minutes before the meeting, Kraft was spotted walking into Brown’s office. He left just minutes before the meeting. He said nothing, but smiled and gave a thumbs’ up.

Once the meeting was under way, Brown got up and agreed that council could fund the pay raise from the general fund. After that, the pay raise and final budget were quickly adopted.

Tax cut rejected

In addition to the pay raise, Phillips proposed cutting taxes next year by a half mill by removing nearly $4 million set aside for the eventual purchase of the centralized human services building on Emrick Avenue. The only person willing to go along with this tax cut was Lamont McClure, who has always insisted that the county has much more money than it says it has. The remaining Democrats, along with Peg Ferraro and Benol, voted against the tax cut.

Bob Werner, one of those opposed to the tax cut, pointed to the irony of the very persons who imposed a 1-mill tax hike last year, now seeking to return half of it.

“On the plus side, it plays well politically,” he said. “However, the ramifications on the negative side are many. We agreed upon plans to use that revenue for short- and long-term capital projects including Gracedale’s parking lot, a much needed forensic center, our prison, infrastructure repairs, especially bridges, and the big one, purchasing the Human Services Building.”

Deputy’s pay cut

Phillips also went through a review of controversial pay raises that Brown had granted over the past year to 13 different employees without council approval. All were approved but one. That was an $8,143 raise Brown gave to Deputy Administrator Cathy Allen. Peg Ferraro attempted to revisit the raise because council members Glenn Geissinger and Seth Vaughn had been absent from the final budget hearing. But her motion died for lack of a second.

Geissinger and Mat Benol participated in council’s most important meeting of the year, a meeting to adopt the budget, by phone. Geissinger and Vaughn were absent from the final budget hearing, the day before adoption of the budget.

Open Space tweaks

At the final budget hearing, Plainfield Township residents Terry Kleintop and Don Moore both took Brown to task for failing to budget any money for farmland preservation in the 2016 budget. Noting that the county preserved 1,200 acres of farmland in 2015, Kleintop insisted there is a demand for this program. Don Moore complained that the plan is “being gutted” and that the county will run out of money this year. He seemed especially upset that Plainfield Township is being denied matching money from the county.

Both Kleintop and Moore left before Parsons proposed some changes to the open space program. He proposed increasing the budget for environmentally sensitive land to $400,000, with the money coming from table games revenue. Brown indicated this was acceptable to him and agreed that some money should be available if a decent project appears.

Parsons admitted he is confused by the farmland preservation program every time he speaks to someone about it, but it is his understanding that the county has budgeted enough money in previous years to fund every farm in the pipeline. He added that it takes about 20 months to settle on an agricultural conservation easement, so there should be no need to budget additional monies for any applications filed this year.

He and Brown both stated that their goal is to spend $1.6 million every year on farmland acquisition.

Gypsy moth

Council also voted unanimously to spend $100,000 more than planned on gypsy moth spraying next year, as the county recently learned that its coverage area has doubled.

Brown failed to state whether he plans to veto the budget. That appears unlikely because he agreed with the amendments adopted by council.