State funds flowing, Montco cancels loan
Montgomery County has canceled a planned $75 million loan and will resume paying human services vendors now that state funds are flowing.
Montgomery County has canceled a planned $75 million loan and will resume paying human services vendors now that state funds are flowing.
The partial spending plan signed by Gov. Wolf on Dec. 30 released crucial funds to schools and counties, but did not address questions of revenue and cuts that have kept him and Republican legislators at loggerheads since June.
"We did receive this morning . . . about $20.7 million in payments," the county's finance director, Uri Monson, told the commissioners at their meeting Thursday. "It's a little less than half of what we are owed."
Much of that will go back into the county's coffers as reimbursement for four months of covering the state's bills.
The rest will go to organizations that provide state-funded services to the mentally ill, the disabled, at-risk youth, and the elderly, and for public health.
Those agencies have been working without pay since November, but should begin seeing checks next week, Monson said, adding: "It will probably be one of the largest check runs we've ever done."
Commissioners Chairman Josh Shapiro said that "had the state not done this . . . we wouldn't have been able to pay our employees."
That's why the board last month approved borrowing $75 million.
That loan has been canceled, Monson said, costing the county tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys' and bankers' fees, as opposed to "as much as $800,000 or $900,000 in interest."
"It will be a much less costly solution for us," he said.
Still, Shapiro blasted those in Harrisburg for not coming up with a permanent solution.
Wolf's partial veto last week blocked the release of about $7 billion in proposed funding, setting the stage for another showdown with GOP lawmakers.
"They need to get back to work," Shapiro said. "It's frankly ludicrous that they've stayed away from Harrisburg at a time when there's still such uncertainty."
610-313-8117@JS_Parks