At the Jan. 20 city council meeting, Council President Rachel Leon announced she would be trying out making herself available for the hour prior to council meetings for residents who don’t wish to speak publicly, and Mayor William Reynolds reported the city has received a new $250,000 grant to complete work on the Greenway near the Comfort Suites.

But the evening’s main discussion was begun by Councilmember Bryan Callahan, who said he is searching for ways to pay for new firefighters.

He asked Fire Chief Matthew Griffin about possibility of charging service fee to Moravian and Lehigh students who make a number of monthly calls requiring emergency fire response, sometimes even multiple times in a single day. Griffin said many properties that house students are not on campuses, and the fire department doesn’t know for certain who the tenants are.

Callahan then asked about the possibility of charging any nonprofit that makes frequent use of city services – fire, police, EMS – without contributing through taxes. He said he wants to help generate the income to pay for four new firefighters in next year’s budget.

Mayor William Reynolds explained the $52 Local Services Tax is designed to do just that, but it was capped at that amount 20 years ago and Harrisburg is investigating ways for some municipalities to raise it again. The LST is a flat tax on people employed in the city but who live elsewhere, and whose income taxes are paid to their home municipalities. It’s an additional revenue source for areas with very large nonprofit footprints; employers such as hospitals and universities that have hundreds or thousands of employees but do not paying property taxes.

Reynolds said it isn’t as simple as finding ways to charge nonprofits. “There’s things that we don’t know that people are investing into the community that are also indirect benefits that save us necessary money and things like that, so it might take a while but we can try to put something together.”

Councilmember Michael Colon said by way of a history lesson council in December 2012 passed a resolution to seek a payment in lieu of taxes for city nonprofits. “This is the second time I’ve heard it brought up on the floor. If we’re going to continue to have these conversations it’s important to know what conversations were had in the past, so I would ask [Tad Miller, city clerk] to share the minutes from that meeting along with the resolution just for everyone’s reference. It was hard to implement a program like that at the time. While each conversation has its own nuances, this is something that had been visited before.”

Council Solicitor Stephanie Steward also addressed Callahan’s question, saying a fee levied upon an institution or individual absent the use of a service would be an illegal tax, though Callahan’s earlier description of new law in Oklahoma was an interesting idea. “Here in Pennsylvania many of the municipalities have fire service recovery fee ordinances whereby they charge insurance companies for the cost of equipment and personnel after an emergency response, so that’s something I’m familiar with and I can provide further information.” She clarified at his question that it would affect non-residents.

Research and discussion of these options would continue.

The next meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 3 at city hall.