Pottsville officials admitted Monday that the City is in serious financial trouble.
In fact, Mayor Tom Smith told Coal Region Canary that in a few years, the way things are going, Pottsville could be in a position where the state is managing its finances.
“We’re at a critical point right now in the city, where if we don’t get things corrected … we’re basically living paycheck to paycheck for years. We’re now trying to reconcile and putting something together that will get us on the right track,” Smith said during Monday’s regular monthly council meeting at City Hall. “We’re in a pretty rough spot right now.”
So to counter that downward slide, there seems to be a need to act fast. But on Monday, a majority of members essentially said ‘no so fast’ when they voted to table a motion to hire an interim financial advisor.
Council members Scott Price, Andy Wollyung, and Dottie Botto voted to table a move to bring in FSL Public Finance, of Reading, as interim financial advisor.
The intended purpose of hiring this company, according to Councilman Jonathan Marsh, is to allow them to come in and potentially confirm the forecast budget projections.
Earlier this year, City Council members voted to allow Pottsville Area Development Corp. to serve as a financial analyst to review the 2026 budget and provide a financial forecast.
That forecast, Marsh and Smith said, was gloomy.
“We desperately need someone like this,” Marsh said. “We don’t have this and haven’t had this. We need this. We have a budget that requires us to move faster than we are moving.”
However, while no one seems to disagree that a financial advisor is necessary, a majority of council members agreed that they were moving too fast by bringing in a company without having done their due diligence.
Immediately after the measure was read aloud, Price questioned Marsh on whether there was a cost breakdown on the company’s services.
Marsh said there was not. He said the motion on Monday’s agenda would be to bring the company in and they wouldn’t start work until the City agreed to its terms, adding he pushed for a vote without those figures Price requested because FSL is “willing to do work that is necessary now.”
Price said at Monday’s meeting that he understood “the urgency behind” wanting to bring in FSL as quickly as possible – or to at least do the work the company does – but wanted to see the costs before he voted to approve it.
In comments to Coal Region Canary after Monday’s meeting, Price said he would actually prefer looking in-house before reaching out for the services this company offered.
“At this current time, I’m opposed to hiring a financial advisor. We have enough resources in the room that we can make sound financial decisions,” Price said.
During the meeting, he said that it seems as though the firm they were considering does “good work” and admitted a financial advisor is needed but said he’s concerned about the cost.
Price added that he was just asking for a cost breakdown of the company’s services before voting to approve it.
Interim City Solicitor Gretchen Sterns said the resolution to hire FSL did allow Pottsville to get out the contract at any time and wondered if Council members want to adopt a cap on how much is spent.
Sterns underscored the urgency she believed Marsh and Smith were pushing.
“Some of the cash on hand that’s being used to balance this year’s budget is sitting in funds that’s earning little to no interest,” Sterns said.
Pottsville council members had just approved budget amendments to the City’s 2026 spending plan after it was reopened and adjusted earlier this year (another story to follow).
“There’s a more than a $100,000 budget deficit this year and there are assets that are sitting there earning little to no revenue,” she added. “There are hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting in accounts right now that’s not earning any money.”
Wollyung said he agreed that something needed to be done to fix the City’s financial status and even said “there’s no question” that a financial advisor is needed. However he, like Price, expressed concern that there was nothing he received that indicated a cost for the services FSL was offering.
He added that he was just handed information on the company – which Marsh told The Canary was recommended by a third party – prior to Monday’s meeting.
During the meeting, Wollyung questioned how FSL was chosen as a potential financial advisor.
“Who vetted FSL,” he asked, adding that if anyone else walked in and wanted to work with the City, the council would ask these questions.
Marsh responded, “We can definitely get in touch with them, if you’d like.”
He said FSL has worked with other municipalities in the area.
Botto said she voted to table a vote on hiring FSL after learning that City Treasurer Taryn Dragna hadn’t been made aware of this topic until just before Monday’s meeting.
Sterns said Smith indicated the City was already looking into hiring the company and added that she was going to recommend the council give the financial advisor firm a call for its services.
“The mayor mentioned their name to me and I was surprised because it was somebody I would have recommended after I looked at how severe the budget numbers were this year and looking at how that deficit rapidly increases if you look at the five-year forecast,” Sterns said.
After Monday’s meeting, Marsh told The Canary that when this council speaks of the budget deficit the City is facing, it’s not the same as the one presented during budget meetings at the end of a year, when department heads bring their “wish lists” to council members and those wishes are dashed in order to arrive at a balanced budget.
Sterns said FSL has been used by three other municipalities she represents, including Tower City and the Porter-Tower Sewer Authority. Sterns said FSL did the RFPs on refinancing existing debt, shifting funds to higher interest-bearing accounts, and restructuring their bond debt.
Regarding the vote to table hiring FSL, Marsh and Smith admitted he could have “cleaned up the language” so it was clear that the City was bringing the company in to just start looking at its numbers before a scope of work can be given.
“We’re going to get a number off them beforehand. We did not phrase it right,” Smith said.
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