Harrisburg Mayor Wants More for Travel

Harrisburg, Pa.'s mayor has requested a $6,500 increase in travel costs above what the City Council allocated her office in fiscal 2012, the Patriot-News reported.

But Linda Thompson calls her request for $10,230 a "wish list." She intends to deliver her final spending plan to the council on Nov. 27.

"I don't prepare the interoffice budget. Once [the finance director] prepares a budget, he prepares that into a draft budget for me," Thompson told the newspaper. "Everything will be a lot reduced. It's a wish list. I haven't asked council for anything. This is the normal process here."

Harrisburg, saddled with $320 million in debt that it cannot pay, largely due to cost overruns to an incinerator retrofit project, is under state receivership.

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania plans to reconsider its order forcing the City Council to double its earned-income tax on Oct. 4.

Receiver William Lynch, who has said the city might run out of money this fall, wants an increase in the tax to 2% from 1%.

Lynch's plan also calls for the sale and leasing of city assets, including the incinerator, parking garages, and sewer and wastewater systems.

Harrisburg last week skipped two general obligation bond payments totaling $3.4 million, the second time this year that Pennsylvania's capital city has missed a GO obligation.

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