Nearly All Scranton, PA, Taxes Go to Public-Employee Benefits

But they're worth every penny, right?

HARRISBURG — In one of Pennsylvania's most financially troubled cities, nearly every tax dollar taken from the pockets of city residents in 2013 will be headed directly to the wallets of past and present city employees.

Meanwhile, taxpayers supporting vital city services face a tax hike of 12 percent, the specter of higher taxes on the horizon and high levels of borrowing by the city as it tries to make ends meet, even as the budget crunch curtails city services.

The city's 2013 budget proposal calls for "an aggressive approach to current revenues," but one observer is calling it something else — theft.