Elected officials presented with 2018 COG Program Plan

Municipal officials on Monday were presented with the 2018 Centre Region Council of Governments Program Plan — an update on the the finances of COG and a look at tentative budget and program proposals for the upcoming year.

“This is our owner’s manual,” said Bud Graham, finance committee chairman and Harris Township supervisor.

The plan is a map of where the COG is now and where it’s going for the next 18 months, COG Executive Director Jim Steff said.

For the most part, COG agencies’ expenditures and revenues were consistent with budgeted projects for the period of Jan. 1 to June 30.

Among items of note, the $2.5 million authorized for the development of Whitehall Road Regional Park in 2017 has not yet been expended.

Planning for the regional park is expected to be delayed until the legal case with the Toll Brothers’ proposed student housing development, The Cottages at State College, on the adjoining property, is cleared up, Steff said.

The goal in 2018 is to keep the increase in municipal contributions to COG to 2.75 percent or less of the 2017 amount, Steff said.

Some municipalities’ contributions will be more and others will be less, he said.

The total COG budget for 2017 was $24,296,938, with municipal contributions accounting for $6,605,486.

A suggestion in the program plan is for contributions to Millbrook Marsh Nature Center’s education building project to be part of the COG budget, he said. But that $200,000 would exceed the 2.75 percent limit, making it more like 5 percent.

That’s something that needs the municipalities’ thought, he said.

The program plan also proposes several personnel changes, including adding a full-time service technician in fire protection and a code services manager in the code administration, Steff said.

In addition, multiple COG formulas are proposed to change in 2018, such as the library funding formula — a request made by Halfmoon Township; the pools loan repayment formula; and the earned income tax factor in the COG formula.

Steff discussed trends in the region, such as continued population and building growth, more of a focus on environmental issues and ongoing problems with state and federal funding.

The more the COG can be independent and rely on its own resources, the better off it will be, Steff said.

The next step is for individual municipalities to provide comments on the plan by Aug. 17, Steff said. Those comments will then aid the finance committee and COG staff in preparing the draft 2018 COG budget.

This story was originally published July 24, 2017 at 11:59 PM with the headline "Elected officials presented with 2018 COG Program Plan."