The Forest County commissioners addressed a variety of matters in 2024, including rural broadband and ambulance service, and many of those projects will be ongoing as the current year continues to unfold.
On broadband, which has been a multiyear project, the commissioners approved a $300,900 contract with All State Tower of Henderson, Kentucky, for the Yellowhammer tower project, funding of which is coming from an Appalachian Regional Commission grant with a 20% county match.
Construction on the tower began in September and was finished by the end of the year.
In June, the commissioners approved the memorandum of understanding with the Northwest Commission, under which the commission will oversee an implementation study for broadband development throughout its nine-county region through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program.
BEAD provides $42.45 billion to expand highspeed internet access by funds planning, infrastructure, deployment, and adoption programs in all 50 states and outlying areas, according to the program’s website.
Commissioner Mark Kingston said a tower will be erected on Greenwood Road in Barnett Township in July of this year, and equipment for emergency medical services communications will be put on the towers.
Four more poles also are scheduled to go up in 2025, Kingston said, which, combined with the towers, will increase broadband access.
Kingston said Forest is one of several counties in western Pennsylvania working with the Northwest Commission to apply for BEAD funding in a $100 million regional broadband project — CoreConnect — to create an open-access fiber network across the counties involved.
Other counties involved are Venango, Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Lawrence, Cameron and Warren.
They are in the process of applying for 40% of the funding through BEAD, Kingston said, and that the rest of the funding would come via a revenue bond from Coco Net, a nonprofit to sell broadband, since that is something counties are prohibited from doing.
According to Kingston, no county tax money would be used and the counties would not “be on the hook” financially for the project.
He explained CoreConnect would own the “totally fiber” network and broadband providers would be able to get on the network to sell internet to customers.
“It would be the largest open access network in the country,” Kingston said of the model that has been used successfully in Western states.
The network would have to be built out by 2028, and the fiber network would be able to serve anyone it ran by, Kingston said.
2025 budget
In December, the commissioners passed the county’s 2025 budget, which included a 1-mill tax increase.
Kingston said the county’s cost for employee health care rose 12% for 2025. Commissioner Bob Snyder said the commissioners also gave county employees a 3% raise for the new year.
The tax rate was raised from 19.91 mills to 20.91 mills on each dollar of assessed valuation, and the library tax will remain at 0.45 mills on each $100 of assessed valuation.
One mill of taxes generates about $87,000, according to the commissioners. The county is allowed to tax at a rate of up to 25 mills.
“We will need a reassessment soon,” Snyder said.
The last time the county had a tax increase was in 2021, when the county also raised taxes by 1 mill. The per capita tax will remain at $5.
The 2025 budget includes projected expenses of $3,624,504, up from the 2024 total of $3,468,642. Total revenues are projected to be $3,047,754.
Snyder said the county plans to balance the budget with funds carried over from the previous year, as it has for a number of years.
The total tax revenue in the budget is projected at $1,928,062, including the library, real estate, per capita taxes and delinquent taxes.
State and federal funds make up the bulk of the county’s remaining revenues.
Total expenses break down to $1,212,905 for administration, $1,089,545 for judicial, $431,271 for public service, $443,143 for corrections and $447,640 under miscellaneous, which covers things such as Children and Youth Services, insurance and retirement.
A tax reassessment is on the horizon in the next few years as the county reaches the limits of the number of mills it is permitted to tax, according to the commissioners. Forest County was last assessed in the 1970s.
Snyder and Kingston said they have met with two companies that do tax reassessments. The estimated cost of a tax reassessment is $2 million to $3 million.
Ambulance service
In early 2024, after push-back from residents regarding a fee to fund the newly created Forest EMS Authority, the authority folded and questions of how to provide timely ambulance service, especially in eastern Forest County, remain.
In February and March, a $115 assessment fee levied to support the Forest EMS Authority in the municipalities that signed on to participate in the service sparked outcry from citizens when they received their first bill at the start of last year.
As a result, several board members resigned from the authority and the fee was rescinded, leaving the future of the authority in question. The authority is “dead in the water,” Commissioner Patrick Kline said, leaving the eastern side of Forest County without a nearby ambulance service.
EmergyCare and Clarion Hospital Emergency Medical Services respond to calls on the eastern side of the county, but residents often have long wait times before the ambulance arrives, Snyder said.
At the time, he noted, the county’s only involvement with the authority that services the eastern part of the county was supplying the ambulance, which was purchased with grant funds, and providing data from the county assessment office for mailings.
The county-owned ambulance that had been associated with the nascent Forest EMS Authority is sitting in a garage in Leeper, according to the commissioners.
Snyder said the county supplies that assessment data to fire companies and Tionesta Ambulance Service, which services the western portion of the county, to use for mailings when subscription drives are conducted.
Forest County has nothing to do with setting the fee to support the ambulance service that had many residents on the east side of Forest County and Farmington Township in Clarion County angry, Snyder said.
At this point, the commissioners said, the county has hired consulting firm MCM to conduct a countywide study of ambulance service in Forest County. That study is ongoing.
Once the study is complete, Snyder said, the goal is “ultimately to put a referendum on the ballot in the spring” about supporting a countywide ambulance service.
The specific language of the referendum has not yet been determined, he said.
Two of the difficulties with funding an EMS service are “you have to budget for the cost of readiness” and “the word ‘volunteer’ doesn’t exist anymore,” Snyder said.
The county is not allowed to levy a specific fire and EMS tax, he noted.
Snyder said he would be happy to see a quick response service in Forest County — a roving medic in an SUV who could stabilize people quickly until an ambulance arrived.
Such a service would have to be attached to an EMS service, he said, noting the Oil City Fire Department operates a quick response service.
Opioid settlement money
In March, the county received $169,000 in opioid settlement money that has come to every county in the state, but the state took awhile to provide guidelines on how the money was permitted to be spent.
As of January 2025, Kline said, the county has given out a little over $67,000 for opioid prevention, education and treatment to the Forest Area School District as well as other treatment programs through Forest-Warren Human Services.
Kline said Forest and Warren counties are getting a combined total of over $200,000 a year in opioid settlement money. Officials in both counties are talking about pooling their money to build an opioid treatment facility.
In 2025, $290,565 in opioid money has come to Forest County, Kline said. As of January, the current balance of opioid money the county has between the allotments in 2024 and 2025 is $389,282.
The opioid settlement money will continue to come to the counties over the next 17 years, according to Kline.
“A lot of people on opioids end up in jail where they are not getting the treatment they need,” Snyder said.
Nittany Minimart
The process of bringing a Nittany Minimart to Marienville is moving slowly.
In January 2023, Snyder said he had been in contact with representatives of Nittany Minimart, which expressed an interest in developing a one-stop grocery and convenience store and truck stop.
Many Nittany Minimart stores are located in the central part of the state. The chain is associated with State College-based Nittany Energy.
Snyder said he was told Nittany would like to develop a 10,000-square-foot building for its operation with parking for 15 to 20 trailers and access from the nearby trail hub, which would make it the biggest Nittany operation.
As of the beginning of this year, Snyder said, Nittany is still trying to acquire part of the BVK property in Marienville, the site of the former Knox Glass plant, for the proposed minimart.
Snyder said the county is working on acquiring the two other buildings at the site, which Nittany doesn’t need, to form a small industrial park. The buildings have been vacant since they were built around 2010.
The county had been working with the state Department of Community and Economic Development to acquire the property. The DCED required the feasibility study, which was completed in February 2024.
The buildings in question were built with grants and loans from the DCED, Snyder said, and the agency has been involved with the ongoing negotiations for the property.
