HOLLIDAYSBURG — The borough’s proposed final budget, the Hollidaysburg Police Association collective bargaining agreement and a new ambulance for the Hollidaysburg American Legion Ambulance Service were on the agenda for the council’s monthly meeting Thursday.

Borough Manager James Gehret told the council that the borough’s 2024 budget doesn’t require a tax increase. The budget reflects a 5% health care rate increase and a 4% salary increase for staff, Gehret said.

“That would be only the staff that’s not getting salary adjustments that we talked about at the budget work session,” Gehret said. “That 4% is in line with the union contract that hopefully you approve later; that’s where that number came from.”

Gehret said that the only line item he has not received is the worker’s compensation expense, but he budgeted that number high enough so that he didn’t “think it’s going to be higher than that.”

The proposed final budget was approved by council and will be available for public viewing at the Hollidaysburg Municipal Building for 10 days.

The council also approved the Hollidaysburg Police Association collective bargaining agreement, whose current contract expires at the end of 2023. “The biggest change is the police salary increase will be 4% across the board for ’24, ’25, ’26,” Gehret said. “They will have one additional increase in ’24: they’ll get a 4% salary increase plus $0.25.”

Gehret explained that the police association had a shift differential for a couple of years that made doing payroll more difficult and that borough was able to buy them out of it with that quarter.

“The contract is pretty much status quo other than salary increase,” Gehret said. “There’s no increase in health care rate charges or anything like that.”

During the meeting’s public comment section, Aaron Andrews with the Hollidaysburg American Legion Ambulance Service told the council that its fleet was aging.

“The average age of our vehicles is about 10 years old,” Andrews said. “But 10 years doesn’t sound like a whole lot when you think about your personal vehicle, but when you think about a vehicle that’s being driven to Pittsburgh and back for long-distance transports and gets taken out every day on the road, that’s a lot of miles.”

Andrews said that only one of its vehicles has under 100,000 miles and it has multiple vehicles with over 300,000 miles.

“Our costs, as far as expenses for the company, next to payroll, vehicle maintenance and repairs is our No. 1 expense,” Andrews said. “So, with you guys’ help, we’d really like to be able to focus more on buying lifesaving care for our community rather than making sure our ambulances are in functioning order.”

The council approved a request for the borough to submit an application for a local share account grant on the behalf of the ambulance service. The borough’s share of the grant would be $111,801, with the ambulance service matching 5%, bringing the grant total to about $117,000.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.