In an era when most citizens are facing an ever-growing mountain of taxes, residents of South Pymatuning Township might just consider themselves fortunate.

Not only did supervisors hold the line on a tax hike for the 13th time in the last 14 years in adopting the 2004 budget Tuesday, they also gave many of their taxpayers a break by repealing a nearly 50-year-old ordinance that effectively taxed residents for street lighting.

The lighting ordinance was adopted in 1954, Supervisor Chairman Michael Nashtock said, to help offset the cost of street lights that were put in by Penn Power. Residents were charged on a sliding scale based on how far their property was located from a particular light and how much footage comprised the property front, he said.

Nashtock said he paid about $24 this year for the fee that was included on residents' tax cards. In an average year the fee brought in about $4,000 to the township, he said.

As the township installed its own street lighting in other areas and on other streets over the years, residents began to complain that assessing a fee on some for lighting and not others based purely on if you lived near a Penn Power-installed pole was unfair.