BCT Editorial – 9/19/10

I have two points about this editorial.

First, I don’t know if this is the case with the Harrisburg school district, but too many politicians who don’t want to cut unnecessary spending instead propose to cut things guaranteed to generate uproar in an attempt to convince voters there is no fat and higher taxes are needed.

Let’s also remember the City of Harrisburg is also in deep financial trouble.  Harrisburg was about to default this month on $3.3 million of bonds issued in 1997.  The only thing that prevented the default was the Commonwealth accelerating a $3.6 million state aid payment.  The problem is Harrisburg decided in 2003 to revamp a garbage incinerator (to avoid a federal shutdown order) and the incinerator debt is now in excess of $280 million.  For 2010, incinerator debt interest was to be $68 million, for a city whose total annual budget is $65 million.

Second, the editorial failed to tell us how the school district came to its $6.8 million deficit.  The district included $7.1 million in revenue it hoped to win from a federal grant program.  The district received “only” $300,000, hence the $6.8 million deficit.  If this sounds familiar, it should.  Elsewhere in Harrisburg, the General Assembly and the Governor included about $470 million in the transportation budget that was to come from a proposal to toll I-80.  The problem is the proposal violated federal law and everyone knew it.  Sure enough, the feds turned down the proposal because a portion of the tolls would be used for purposes other than the “care and feeding” of I-80 and up pops a $470 million deficit in the transportation budget and the call for more taxes.