Pennsylvania’s Senate has scheduled a hearing on Aug. 29 about the incinerator bond deals that left capital city Harrisburg with more than $310 million of debt that it cannot pay.
The local government committee will convene at 10 a.m. in Hearing Room 1 at the North Office Building, according to its chairman, Sen. John Eichelberger Jr., R-Blair Township.
Eichelberger said in a statement that the forensic audit released in January by the Harrisburg Authority, the public works agency that operates the incinerator, prompted the Senate investigation. The audit “raises numerous concerns as to the role that the debt of a municipal authority can play in the financial distress of a community,” Eichelberger said.
The lawmaker anticipates several hearings on the subject.
The authority’s 133-page report on Jan. 18 cited the failure of Barlow Projects Inc., the original engineering firm on a retrofit of the incinerator, and lambasted itself, the city, Dauphin County and numerous professional advisors for brushing off warning signs about the deal.
Harrisburg is under state receivership. Last month, receiver William Lynch chose the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority to enter into exclusive negotiations to purchase the incinerator that has become the face of the city’s debt crisis.
Lynch’s predecessor, David Unkovic, had favored obtaining more concessions from creditors as part of the city’s financial recovery plan before abruptly quitting on March 30, citing “political and ethical crosswinds.”
Also in late March, a Dauphin County judge ruled that a separate receiver was necessary to oversee the operations and bond debt of the waste-to-energy incinerator.
“With regard to the Harrisburg incinerator project, the laws designed to protect taxpayers from undue debt failed. The committee needs to determine whether that failure was due to a lack of compliance with those laws, or whether changes are needed to strengthen them,” Eichelberger added,
Robert Philbin, a spokesman for Mayor Linda Thompson, said the mayor “supports any investigations into legal matters involving transactions related to the accumulation of Harrisburg incinerator debt.”
