Lansford Borough Council last week discussed the compensation rate for the tax collector moving forward and had some disagreements in percentage of taxes collected to be paid or a flat-rate compensation.

Councilman Joseph Butrie complained that the tax collector's hours of operation have decreased, and that before it was open every day.Council Vice President Rose Mary Cannon said the rate has nothing to do with the hours of operation and that some towns' tax collectors are open only one or two times a week.Council President Martin Ditsky asked what Summit Hill recently did and Cannon said they went down to 3 percent rate of the collected taxes.Ditsky said that most tax collectors have another job, and getting $25,000 on top of that plus what they get paid from the school district and the county is a nice chunk of change. Ditsky said they needed to look at the whole package, because he wasn't even making that much on pension.Butrie said his wife works part-time for the borough and doesn't make as much as the tax collector and that she was there more than the tax collector.Mary Soberick, a former councilwoman,said she didn't see why they would try to shortchange the person running for that elected position, based on hours of operation or how much someone's wife earns.She said, "Everyone is stating their personal concerns about this, but there was no problem for the last 30 years for 4 percent or 5 percent for somebody else. Now it's a problem because it's a new person sitting there, so now let's lower it."Daniel Wynn retired in January 2016 after 32 years as Lansford tax collector. Terrance McCall was appointed to fill the remainder of Wynn's four-year term that expires this year."It's an elected position no matter who's sitting there; you have to look at it from a different perspective other than comparing it to your own thoughts of job employment … what I hear doesn't sound fair," Soberick said.Cannon said council has to change the rate by Feb. 15 "so that anybody that wants to run for the seat would be aware of what the compensation is going to be" and they didn't have the figures until now.Ditsky said they had budgeted the seat under the old ordinance and that changing it to 3 percent would be a savings to the borough.Butrie made a motion to change the compensation rate to 3 percent across the board for discounted and regular tax fee rates, seconded by Ditsky. Cannon and Councilman Jared Soto were opposed, but the motion carried with Mayor James Romankow voting for it.Another motion was passed to advertise the tax collector's compensation, contingent upon whether the borough can eliminate section 2, or change it, regarding paying $200 a year for office expenses reimbursement.