NEW YORK - The Novak Consulting Group will head a team of advisers to help Harrisburg develop a recovery plan and address $282 million of outstanding incinerator debt.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development announced Wednesday that Novak Consulting will serve as Harrisburg’s recovery plan coordinator. Also working on the fiscal recovery plan is Bob O’Donnell of O’Donnell Associates, the Pennsylvania Economy League, and Stevens and Lee PC.
The group includes professionals who have experience working with municipalities that are in Pennsylvania’s distressed communities program, called Act 47, according to DCED. Harrisburg, the state’s capital city, entered into the Act 47 program on Dec. 15.
“This team will bring objectivity and experience to the city of Harrisburg,” DCED Secretary Austin Burke said in a statement. “Each member brings their own area of expertise to address Harrisburg’s complex and unique financial issues and, together, their knowledge of municipal financial expertise will be a great asset to the city.”
Harrisburg did not pay debt service costs on the incinerator bonds in 2010 and did not include such payments in its 2011 budget. The city guarantees the incinerator debt. It struggled to meet a $3.3 million general obligation debt-service payment in mid-September.
