Luzerne County is up against the wall

Tim Grier is not going to give in and he shouldn't even after Luzerne County Commissioner Chaiman Greg Skrepnak said this through his mouthpiece.

TL: Speaking through county Public Information Officer Kathy Bozinski, Skrepenak said he is confident the county “did everything it possibly could to reach out to Tim Grier and try to resolve this issue.”

I can't find a link but I'm sure I read that Grier said that he has not been contacted by Skrep. The crux of the problem is twofold. Skrep and company wants to borrow $93.5 million to fund a bunch of wish list projects in Wilkes-Barre and elsewhere without providing the details. The other part of the new bond is to fund this year's deficit and pay off a Tax Anticipation Note (TAN) that is due by the end of the year. I always thought that a TAN was to to bridge the gap for a couple of months before the property taxes come in then the taxes would pay it off. In this case it looks like the Commissioners had no intention of paying off that note but wanted to push it off to the next year. Now Plan B has to kick in.

Now the big worry is paying off the TAN or the county will have to shut down. They could go to the court and get permission to take a loan that would have to be paid off in 10 years but they want to bury it into yet another bond issue that stretch out the the payments over 20 years.

The county is now scrambling to find $10 million to cover the 2007 tax anticipation loan and they just might do it. Or maybe not because the numbers don't add up.

Budget and finance says $3.2 million is left. Other officials have other figures.



The Debit Card thing is just a symptom of the disease. I'll return to the Debit Cards but we need a moniker for this scandal that doesn't end in gate.