Haste, DiFrancesco Pile Up County Debt
by Policy Brief
Dauphin County Commissioners Jeff Haste and Nick DiFrancesco have tanked the county's bond rating, now they are engaging in reckless borrowing, running up public debt for questionable purposes.
Haste and DiFrancesco have been critical of the previous board of commissioners for borrowing money to, among other things; upgrade Spring Creek (the former county nursing home). Now they have plunged taxpayers into $22 million dollars of debt to house criminals by building a fancy new female work release center.
It seems Haste and DiFrancesco place the welfare of criminals over the welfare of our county's oldest and most vulnerable citizens.
Recall that DiFrancesco was placed in charge of Spring Creek. After hiring a management firm that charged the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and failed to deliver on promised cost efficiencies, the commissioners admitted their ineptitude and sold Spring Creek at a fire sale to a private concern.
Having failed to exercise any oversight into the botched retrofit of the Harrisburg trash incinerator, Haste and DiFrancesco have placed Dauphin County taxpayers at risk. The county is the third guarantor on the retrofit bond issue "" and both the Harrisburg Authority and the City of Harrisburg have proven unable to meet bond payments.
Dauphin County is on the hook for making those payments because the incumbent commissioners did not keep an eye on what was happening at the authority until it was too late. Now, as is their custom, they are seeking to cast the blame elsewhere without ever admitting to their own failure to lead.
The looming county taxpayer liability for the incinerator has resulted in a downgrading of the county's bond rating. So what do the commissioners do? They add $22 more debt to the county's debt load.
This is irresponsible.
Unlike the reconstruction of the county nursing home and improvements to the court house undertaken by the past administration, the current round of spending is not necessary "" at least not at this time. It also is folly to be borrowing and spending on new projects with the incinerator issue "" a problem of their own making "" hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles.
But then again, this is a county board of commissioners that raised taxes by nearly 50% and then crowed about having a budget surplus.
Anybody can tax their way into a surplus, but clearly Jeff Haste and Nick DiFrancesco cannot govern in a fiscally responsible manner.