As I wrote several weeks back, the Corbett administration is subsidizing the cost of Harrisburg’s bailout by leasing a large number of parking spaces for state workers.
The process of providing vast numbers of free parking spaces for state workers is already underway, I’m told.
Yesterday this interesting communication came in from a state worker:
“As a result of Corbett’s back door bail out of Harrisburg, PennDot managers at pay grade 9 (section chiefs, two steps down from a Bureau Director) now have free parking in Harrisburg Parking Authority Garages.
“The monthly retail on these spots is around $140 or so. I don’t know if other agencies are adding to middle manager’s perks.
“The important thing I think is these state employees that get parking do not pay any imputed income tax for the value (of the new free parking spaces made possible by the bailout).
“Bureau Directors make 100K+, while a Clerk 1 at (PennDot’s Riverside Office Center) makes 25K and pays 20 bucks a month for surface parking.”
A few days after NewsLanc broke the news about the parking spaces bailout plan, the Harrisburg Patriot ran an article suggesting the state will lease 3,000 parking spaces.
But one insider close to the bailout negotiations say the Patriot’s 3,000-space number is inaccurate.
“Three thousand? That’s not the number I see in the reports,” I was told.
But let’s do the bailout math: if an average parking space in Harrisburg goes for $140 a month, that’s $1,680 a year. Times 3,000 spaces (Patriot’s inaccurate number, not mine), that generates $5,040,000 in parking revenue a year. ($140 x 12 = $1,680 x 3,000 = $5,040,000.)
At $5 million a year, the state could bail out Dauphin County Commissioner’s and the bond underwriter’s disputed $50 million in just ten years.
Clearly, there’s lots of money in those Harrisburg parking spaces.
All this will also serve to make parking more difficult for everyone else in the capital city, where parking often can be a challenge.
“Most state workers if they take a new job — lateral or a promotion — that doesn’t have parking and wish to park in a lot are effectively getting a pay reduction,” the worker tells me. “A lot of state workers (currently) park uptown around Riley Street and above but it’s a good chance that area will be metered as part of the parking sell out.”
Those close to the Harrisburg receiver’s office say that Corbett’s stealth Harrisburg bailout plan will be filed with Commonwealth Court for approval next week.
That the state is already implementing the parking plan for its workers suggests that the Corbett Administration views the approval of Commonwealth Court as a mere formality, and that the administration expects the judge to merely rubber stamp the plan.
