CHAMBERSBURG – The Franklin County Commissioners are keeping a close eye on the ticking clock with the Pennsylvania budget – or lack thereof.
Franklin County has enough reserves to continue to function, but it does affect the bond rating.
Franklin County Commissioner John Flannery said, “We keep an eye out. It’s got to happen. I mean, these guys have got to get it done. At the end of the day, we’ve done our due diligence, and we keep a certain amount of liquid funds in accounts that we’re moving all the time. The bottom line is, for Franklin County, we have enough reserves to cover 90 days. Now that affects our bond ratings. That affects other things. We have a AA rating. We’ve had it since I’ve been a commissioner, and we’ve made a commitment to keep those required funds. Some of the discussion has been, are you losing interest income from not being able to invest money? It is minimal, and we anticipate it will be minimal, unless this thing drags later into the fall, then we might start to get concerned. Will we appeal to the state to reimburse those lost interest payments? Maybe. We’ll see. I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere, though.”
Anthony Panasiewicz of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “That’ll just cost the taxpayers more dollars. With those investments, you say, you keep it to a bare minimum. I know a lot of times, especially, let’s say the unions or the pensions, dealing with the state employees, government employees, a lot of the investments are for those programs, because those programs are going to get exponentially bigger as your people grow and people live longer, is the pension fund paid for by other means?”
“We won’t touch that,” Flannery assured. “Our pension fund is paid for primarily, believe it or not, by our employees. The county does contribute, but it’s mostly funded from our employees. So that’s safe. Trust me. We won’t be touching that. Again, we’ve done our due diligence that we’ll never have to go there. I mean, it would have to be a catastrophic event for something like that to even be considered.”
The housing authority had a meeting two weeks ago.
Flannery said, “The Housing Authority is doing a really good job. Our director, Danny Myers, I meet with him regularly. They just got a 100% score on their Section 8 management assessment program. They have a landlord summit coming up for Section 8. They have some good management right now in place with Section 8. I don’t know if people realize that between Chambersburg and Waynesboro, I think Chambersburg, we have roughly 300 units. Waynesboro is, I think, over that 150 mark. I think we also get 150 vouchers around that for Section 8 housing. The Housing Authority houses a lot of struggling people throughout the county, and they’re really doing a good job. There is an opening currently on the board. We’ve changed directors here over the last three or four years and went through some major changes, but it’s running really well right now. So I do encourage people to apply for the board. They can do that through the county. I think that’s on our website, and the authority will look over those applications, first make a recommendation to the county commissioners, and then we’ll make the final decision on that board member.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM asked, “Are you seeing much impact as of yet from the change of administration? Because the Trump administration is going to look at these things very, very differently than the Biden administration did. First of all, though, I just want to throw back to HUD is weird because it doesn’t fall under the federal or the state governments. It’s kind of its own entity, but has influences from both the federal and the state, and as far as the county and the county commissioners, your role is to oversee who’s on that board. That’s it. So it’s a weird confluence of state, local and federal and I do appreciate you stepping into that when we were getting word that some things might not have been very kosher, and nobody was paying attention because it doesn’t have that direct authority from any of those. So it does take, and I give you, and any other municipality, county in Pennsylvania, the credit if you take an active involvement in that, because it’s important. There are going to be changes. The Biden administration, being a progressive leftist administration, had very different ideas of the unhoused, as they call them. I hate that because it makes human beings sound like commodities. I prefer the homeless, people who want a place to call home, and how we can handle it when people are on hard times, and what can we do to help? Have you seen any of those effects yet of the change of administration?”
Flannery said, “No, but it is again, an area of concern for the housing authority, not knowing what those changes are going to be, but at this point, there’s still grant funding that they’re spending from 2024 that they have to use. You can only roll over so much, or it’s a use it or lose it. By the way, that park will be opening soon. As of right now, I know there’s concern, but we have not been impacted at this point. Those changes and those philosophies, years could go by before the impact has actually been felt or seen. So it’s difficult to plan ahead when you’re not sure what you can plan for.”
There is a waiting list for the housing authority.
Flannery said, “At any given time, there could be 300 plus people or families on the waiting list to get into some of the properties at the Housing Authority. Now, the thing I like about our housing authority is it is income based, so they are paying rent. Some of that obviously is subsidized through HUD and the government, but they are held accountable and responsible for paying a portion of the rent that’s due. The sad thing is, again, you’re looking at 300 plus people or families trying to get in there. So where are they if they’re not going there? That’s the scary part. I don’t see that there are really any plans to expand the Housing Authority at this time. I think a lot of that’s just because of the unknown moving forward.”
