Allegheny Township will continue to use money from its general budget to pay worker’s compensation insurance premiums for the township’s fire departments.
The township supervisors this week opted not to use money from the township’s 1.15-mill fire tax to pay the insurance premiums.
“This wasn’t actually an item for business,” Supervisor Michael Korns said. “It was a discussion item that I wanted to discuss.”
In February, the board passed a motion recognizing a state law passed last year that provides flexibility for municipalities when it comes to paying for fire departments. Under the law, Korns said, municipalities can use money collected from fire taxes to pay insurance premiums for fire departments.
Pennsylvania law requires municipalities to provide workers compensation insurance for firefighters injured in the line of duty.
In Korns’ opinion, the motion was vaguely worded and unclear.
“I made a motion (in February) and it was approved unanimously because it didn’t state anything vaguely close to what it actually was used to do,” he said.
Several months later, Korns said, that motion was being used to justify using fire tax money, which traditionally had gone entirely to the fire departments, to pay the worker’s compensations premiums that the township is obligated to provide by statute.
“I wanted to do everything I could to get that money returned to our fire departments.” Korns said. “We simply, as a board, need to direct our manager to not utilize that motion in that way, and to return those worker’s compensations premium funds back to the fire department.”
Korns said it “shouldn’t affect the township’s budget in any way because the money was already budgeted. The budget that we approved last November had that full amount of worker’s compensation premiums.”
Korns said restoring the budget to provide the $22,000 total premium payment from the township’s general fund will enhance the safety and well-being of the community.
“We should provide all of that (fire tax) money to our fire departments, and the township should meet their obligations to provide workers compensations as they always have due to their general tax revenue,” Korns said. “This money never should have been in the township’s budget in the first place.”
Supervisor Jamie Morabito said reports that the township took money that the fire departments were demanding be returned were not accurate.
“There is approximately $105,000 with a 1.15-mill fire tax that is taxed to Allegheny Township residents,” Morabito said. “It goes to the Allegheny Township Fire Department and Markle Fire Department, which is $52,500 each.”
He said the state law allows municipalities the flexibility to take the insurance premiums out of that money, which means the fire departments would get less money to spend as they determine.
Morabito said the worker’s compensation premium initially was paid out of the fire tax fund this year.
“That’s why they passed Pennsylvania Act 140, so municipalities were not burdened,” Morabito said. “We pay the workman’s comp out of that taxpayer money.
”If we do not do that and we give the fire departments the whole $52,500 and then we take $11,000 for each department out of our general fund, that is still taxpayer money.
“So I’m doing it twice. I’m giving you the money from the fire tax, and then I am taking $22,000 more out of the general fund, which is also taxpayer money.”