The financial plight of Harrisburg, Pa., goes far beyond incinerator debt financing, according to a local law professor who is coordinating a symposium on distressed cities.
"Everyone hears about the incinerator bonds, but Harrisburg in many ways is typical of many cities that have fallen into distress," Widener University School of Law's Juliet Moringiello said in a recent Bond Buyer video.
Harrisburg, said Moringiello, "is a small central core which is populated by a lot of people who don't have a lot of money. The suburbs are vast and lots of people with the money moved out to the suburbs but they work in the city."
Almost half the land in Harrisburg is tax-free, much of it owned by the state government, according to Moringiello.
Widener will host "Bankruptcy and Beyond: Solving the Problem of Municipal Financial Distress," beginning at 8 a.m. Monday in Room A-180 of the administration building of the Harrisburg campus on 3800 Vartan Way.
The keynote speakers will Harrisburg receiver and retired Air Force General William Lynch and Jarad Handelman, first executive deputy general counsel to Gov. Tom Corbett.
David Unkovic of McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC in Lancaster, Pa., a 30-year bond law veteran and Lynch's predecessor as receiver, will speak at a 9 a.m. panel on municipal financing.
Other pensions will focus on pensions and other hot topics in Chapter 9 cases; judges' perspectives of Chapter 9; and the future of today's distressed municipalities.
Mark Kaufman, the lead attorney for the Harrisburg receivership team and a partner and co-chair of the municipal finance group at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, will appear on the pension panel.
Panelist bankruptcy judges include Mary France of the Middle District of Pennsylvania, who invalidated the Harrisburg City Council's Chapter 9 filing in November 2011; and Thomas Bennett of the Northern District of Alabama, a Philadelphia-area native who is overseeing the $4.23 billion bankruptcy filing by Jefferson County, Ala.
Moringiello said Harrisburg's status as a state capital and its failed attempt to file bankruptcy -- France cited the state's ban on Harrisburg filing Chapter 9 -- generated widespread discussion in public finance.
"At the time Harrisburg filed for bankruptcy, that was before Jefferson County, it was before Detroit, so Harrisburg filing for bankruptcy made people say uh-oh, how does this work?," she said.
Harrisburg last year crafted a financial plan that state-appointed receiver William Lynch said will keep Pennsylvania's 49,000-population capital out of bankruptcy. The so-called Harrisburg Strong plan erased about $600 million of debt, much of it related to bond financing overruns to a retrofit project for the city incinerator.
The plan, which the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania approved, hinged on the sale of the incinerator to the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority and a long-term lease of parking assets from the city and the Harrisburg Parking Authority to the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority.
Bond sales to finance both transactions closed in December. Harrisburg exited state receivership last month, though it remains under Department of Community and Economic Development oversight.
