Debt-free: 30 years of saving pays for Loyalhanna Township’s new $1 million garage
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Frugality was the word of the day Thursday in tiny Loyalhanna Township in northern Westmoreland County.
Supervisors of the township, with a population of about 2,300 people, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new, five-bay public works garage that cost just more than $1 million.
But the cost wasn’t covered by a bond or loan. Instead, it was paid in cash that supervisors “socked away a little bit at a time for more than 30 years,” said Mary Trunzo, township secretary-supervisor.
“Yes. We built it and paid for it, and I can say the township’s still debt-free,” Trunzo said. “We haven’t raised taxes here in over 20 years.”
The new garage that replaces a two-bay, wood-pole building that was built in 1960, was a long time coming, said Ken Walters, who has been a supervisor for 15 years.
He said the scrimping of expenses to pay for the new facility “began with a lot of supervisor boards a long time before I got here.”
“And a lot of people weren’t happy about it. They didn’t think we needed a new garage … some still don’t,” Walters said.
However, Trunzo said, the township outgrew the old facility “a very long time ago.”
She has been township secretary-treasurer 33 years and a supervisor since being appointed in 2000, having won three subsequent elections.
When the original garage was built, the township had two trucks. It now has five, plus a loader, backhoe and road grader along with several smaller pieces of equipment, she said.
“The many supervisors who came before the current board knew that, at some time, they would need more space and began planning for this. We began seriously looking for property for a new garage about 12 years ago and found nothing suitable until four years ago, when the Second Street site became available,” Trunzo said.
The new 7,000-square-foot building, built by Claysville contractor Graham Construction Co., more than triples the space of the former 2,000-square-foot garage on Fifth Street, about a half-mile away, Trunzo said.
“There was just no space for maneuvering trucks with the ash and stone piles either. Our property at the old site was about one acre,” Walters said.
The new site is 12 acres and has a working gas well, enabling the building to be heated with “free natural gas,” Walters noted.
“Oh, the old building energy costs were really high. The new building, although much larger, has about a third of the old building’s energy costs,” Trunzo said.
The township’s general account budget is about $350,000 annually, plus the township receives about $170,000 annually in state liquid fuels tax “but liquid fuels is all dedicated to roads,” Trunzo said.
“But again, we did not do this ourselves. The people before us had the foresight to keep putting money away to enable us to do this,” Trunzo told a crowd of several dozen people who attended a short ceremony at 245 Second St., just off Route 981 near Saltsburg, along with state, county and local officials.
State Sen. Joe Pittman, an Indiana Republican, during brief remarks noted how rare it is for a municipality not to have to take out any loans to pay for such a large project.
However, the new building does not hold a new township office. The office remains at 220 Fifth St., behind the old garage.
“We discussed a new office, but we wanted to be careful to contain our construction costs. We’re fortunate we built it when we did because it would cost about double now with the prices,” Trunzo said.
Let the saving begin.