Last week, a NewsLanc reader challenged City Council Candidate Matt Holden’s assessment of the City’s performance in the Lancaster Township police contract negotiations. Whereas Holden called the City’s more expensive proposal a likely sign that “the management of the City’s expenses is out of control,” the reader’s letter to the editor asserted the following: “Lancaster City’s proposal to Lancaster Township … included the City’s costs for overhead and incidental expenses….Manheim Township’s proposal, which charges incidental expenses and overtime separately, does not charge Lancaster Township for all overhead costs.”
NewsLanc recently contacted Holden for his response to the letter. Holden replied as follows:
My statement said that one of two things must likely be true as a result of the contracting ordeal and I charged that Council has a duty to look into these things, and not simply take the mayor at his word. Their duty is to act as a check and balance to the mayor. Something which is obviously lacking from council.
My statement at the previous council meeting suggested two possibilities and requested that the council consider an inquiry to determine where the problem lie and then report back to the citizens at a council meeting.
Again, my take on it is that one of two things happened: either we over bid, or we bid accurately based on our costs and simply are not price competitive.
In my statement I simply said that I’ll take the high road and assume that the mayor did not try to take advantage of our neighbors and over bid. So, accepting this as true, then I feel council has a responsibility to explain to the citizens of Lancaster why we are not price competitive with our policing services.
Also, I read the post of the reader you quoted in your email to me. Overhead costs are a difficult topic to address, but I’ll do my best to explain why I think the issue of overhead quoted is perhaps inaccurate. Ultimately, what must be considered is this: The mayor has said that we will reduce our police force by the number of officers that service Lancaster Township through attrition. He has not said that we will reduce clerical staff. Obviously he will not be able to reduce the heating and electric bill for the police station proportionately. What I am driving at here is this: we still carry a large portion of the overhead which the township was contributing towards. Even if they didn’t pay a full pro-rata share, many of these costs are fixed costs that cannot be reduced by simply reducing the size of the police force. This cost burden must now be carried entirely by City taxpayers, with no contribution from township. As I mentioned in my statement at the council meeting, another such cost that will still be incurred for a lengthy period are costs associated with pension benefits as we will have to fully carry the burden of the legacy costs of the police officers Mayor Gray said he intends to reduce our force by.
Also responding to the letter you quoted: Granted, I did offer criticism regarding the handling of the contract negotiations, I can not offer a ‘solution’ to this issue as the issue is over and we can’t go back and ask for a do-over. The contract is lost and the Manheim Township offer has been accepted. However, it should be noted that I did offer both recommendations and solutions to other problems I raised concerns about in my statement.
- Council has a duty to do an inquiry into the issue and formally respond to the Citizens of Lancaster about what the expected consequences, good or bad, of this contract loss may be. And they should look into this on their own, not simply regurgitate to people what the Mayor’s office has told them. They owe it to us to hold the mayor’s feet to the fire and to independently review this issue.
- Crime is a major concern in the city. And I’ve had this confirmed to me hundreds, possibly thousands of times, as I make my way, door-to-door, through the city. (The mayor says that me talking about crime is a ‘scare tactic’ but I’m only raising the issue because people have constantly affirmed to me that it is their number one concern in the city right now.) My solution to this is to make lemonade out of lemons, so to speak. My recommendation is for the City to find a way to assimilate these officers onto the City streets once the Township contract expires. This will help us improve city safety.
