SMETHPORT — The McKean County Commissioners have accepted the recommendations of the McKean County Planning Commission and on Thursday authorized the county to allocate Act 13 funding to two local non-profit organizations and two townships.
A total of $37,301 from the County’s Act 113 Greenways/Legacy will go to the Kinzua Valley Trail Club and to the Mount Jewett 2 Kinzua Bridge Trail Club. The county planning commission recommended that 60 percent, or $22,380.60, will go to the KVTC for the construction of a trailhead at Tally Ho near Route 219, and 40 percent, or $14,920.40, to the MJK2BTC for drainage work along the Knox-Kane Corridor between Mount Jewett and Lantz Corners.
In the second vote, commissioners approved the allocation of $81,329 of the county’s Act 13 Highway Bridge Improvement Restricted Funds to Liberty and Keating townships. Liberty Township will use its $65,271.43 for replacing the Upper Portage Road Bridge over Portage Creek. Keating Township plans to use it $16,057.55 for the replacement of the Kent Hollow Road Bridge over an unnamed tributary of Potato Creek.
The county received $548,649 in impact fees. Act 13 allows counties and municipalities where unconventional well drilling is located to impose impact fees, which the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission collects and distributes to those continues impacted by the drilling.
Act 13 allows the state to earmark some of the fees for state agencies to offset the statewide impact of drilling.
Then 60 percent of the remainder goes to counties and municipalities — the Unconventional Gas Well Fund — and 40 percent is used for statewide initiatives with potential local impacts and value.
When the county planning commission ranked the applications for the Act 13 money on Jan. 8, some members were critical of the commissioners using $450,067 to balance the county’s 2019 budget to avoid a tax increase. That left the $81,329 available for the highway bridge improvement projects and the $37,301 for the Greenways/Legacy projects, which planning commission members believed shortchanged the municipalities that had submitted applications.
To clear up any misunderstanding about why the county commissioners kept most of the allocated impact fees, Commissioner Carol Duffy presented information from her research about the categories of eligible uses for Act 113 funds in 2018, which showed this money can be used for tax reductions, including homestead reductions, one of 13 categories that are eligible for this funding.
“We used this money appropriately and legally,” Duffy said. “Nothing has changed this year; the county has always kept a portion of the Act 13 funds.”
In other votes, commissioners approved a revision regarding the reallocation of funding for the 2015 Community Development Block Grant Program. An excess of $8,109.05 in administration was drawn for the 2012 Foster Township CDBG grant program, and this requires reimbursement back to the program, and a Partnership in Housing covered the cost of reimbursing the money. These reimbursements must now be added to the most current, or 2017 CDBG program.
It has been determined that the best us of these recovered funds to increase the allocation of the 2017 Kane Borough Housing Rehabilitation Program by $8,109.05 for a new reallocation total of $63,109.05.
Also gaining the OK was a resolution detailing the McKean County Redevelopment Authority’s CDBG, Home and ESG Language Access Plan that all program materials, public notices and project-related resolutions will be published/posted in Spanish upon request.
Commissioners also:
• approved an invoice for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services, Inc. for $9,980, which represents a portion of their budget allotment for the period ending December 31, 2018;
• agreed to sign a letter from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services acknowledging the final year fiscal year 2017-18 Medical Assistance Transportation Program allocation of $558,981;
• approved a maintenance contract with Karpinski’s Office systems for a copy machine for the 911/EMA offices at a cost of $.69 per color copy and $.08 for black and white; plan also includes parts, toner and labor; authorized the county to enter a pre-paid service deposit agreement with Link Computer Corporation for the information technology department at a cost of $5,000, and
• approved various service provider agreements.
