West Reading approves labor deals, limits station estimate work to $4,000

Minutes from West Reading Borough Council’s Sept. 15 meeting, posted Oct. 21, record approval of three-year labor agreements and limited preliminary work on police-station plans described as exceeding $1 million. The borough’s meeting-minutes index lists the records; BerksConnect’s account details the actions.

The agreements cover Teamsters-represented borough employees and police employees. They are scheduled to run from Jan. 1, 2027, through Dec. 31, 2029. The minutes do not state the agreements’ wages, benefits, work rules or cost to the borough, so their financial effect cannot be determined from the terms recorded there.

Estimate work is not renovation approval i

An engineer discussed police-station plans exceeding $1 million. Council authorized Systems Design Engineering to prepare certified cost estimates for a Pennsylvania Statewide Local Share Account grant application, with the work capped at $4,000. Does that authorize construction? No. The action approved estimate work, not the renovation or a project budget.

The Sept. 15 minutes also record a $1.4 million transfer from PLGIT Prime to the M&T general fund. They list $118,000 for a 433 Penn Avenue bond expense, $110,000 for a Green Light-Go payment and $96,000 for a dump truck. Those three amounts total $324,000, leaving $1.076 million of the transfer unexplained by the listed expenses.

Council approved a $606.92 Green Light-Go change order, bringing that contract to $150,802.47. The minutes say $7,540.12 was to be retained pending PennDOT approval and closeout documents.

At its Sept. 22 meeting, council ratified sending a draft data-center ordinance to the Berks County Planning Commission for review; the referral was not adoption. It also approved a 22-foot replacement Christmas tree for up to $13,502 after the existing tree was damaged. The minutes cited $16,500 in insurance for the damaged tree.