LEHIGH VALLEY MORNING CALL: The Lehigh County Authority, which jumped through hoops for the chance to bid on the Allentown water and sewer lease, voted Tuesday to make an offer on the system…
Allentown needs a $150 million to $200 million payout in the lease to bolster its severely underfunded employee pension funds. The city’s unfunded liability is estimated to be $154 million to $162 million…
The proposed lease commands a high upfront payment as well as a $2.5 million annual royalty fee, freezes rates until 2015 and ties them to the Consumer Price Index plus a percentage in the years that follow. From 2016 to 2032, the percentage above the CPI would be 2.5 percent… (more)
BILL KEISLING: This seems to be another case of a PA authority used as local piggy bank to bail out the un-funded liabilities of local government. From the article:
“Allentown needs a $150 million to $200 million payout in the lease to bolster its severely underfunded employee pension funds. The city’s unfunded liability is estimated to be $154 million to $162 million.”
“Lisa Scheller, chairwoman of the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners, said she was disappointed LCA chose to be ‘complicit’ in Allentown’s plan to bail itself out of a pension crisis. She said she is willing to consider legal action or dissolving the authority.
“ ‘This is not a regionalization of the water system,” Scheller said. ‘This is a redistribution of a tax increase. I just don’t understand how the members of the board of LCA could vote in good conscience to submit a bid for these kind of numbers and know they are taxing the ratepayers and the water-users of Lehigh County.’ ”
