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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Does Bethlehem Need a Watchdog?

It's called cooking the books.

Bethlehem has done it the past two years. It has an account, called its treasurer's escrow account, where money earmarked for special projects is deposited. Grant money from the state and county is sent there. For the past two years, Bethlehem has dipped into that fund around this time every year. It has borrowed millions to meet payrolls as its money well runs dry.

Although city council adopted an ordinance in May to give them some oversight, the only thing that has saved Bethlehem from dipping into that account this year was a $1.7 million windfall, in the form of a sewer hook-up fee from the Sands BethWorks casino. But since that money is earmarked for sewer projects, does it go in the escrow account or general fund?

This is why Bethlehem needs a qualified controller. The CPA is a little more impressive than the DEM.
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5 comments:

  1. michael molovinskyOctober 3, 2007 at 2:51 AM

    bernie, if i may ramble "near" topic for a while, allentown also needs a watchdog. ironically, not all was lost when the most tenacious one possible, was snickered off the ballot; hershman, who has taken his share of shots on the blogosphere. fortunately, there's still an opportunity for allentown to control its finances; Michael Schware cpa, and allentown budget expert. talk about cooking the books, the alternative in allentown is the mayors hand picked and financed choice.

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  2. AnonymousOctober 3, 2007 at 9:59 AM

    Bethlehem should have elected Tony Rybak for mayor.

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  3. Bernie O'HareOctober 3, 2007 at 10:03 AM

    Bethlehem needs a watchdog, not Tony Behindyourback. He unfairly smeared Joe Brennan, and used sleazeball tactician Tom Severson to help his campaign. I would not support Ryback for anything after that.

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  4. AnonymousOctober 3, 2007 at 3:27 PM

    Bethlehem is fine. It has a growing tax base; good cachet as Money Magazine's only PA rated "best place to live" in 2006. And a Mayor who enjoys his job.

    Tony Rybak, seemingly a nice and funny fellow, would have been a disaster and his campaign against Joe Brennan was a disgrace. Is tony still making pizza pies?

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  5. michael molovinskyOctober 4, 2007 at 4:31 PM

    allentown's watchdog; in the paper today and on the mcall queen city blog there is alittle back and forth between hoffman and schware, candidates for allentown controller

    ReplyDelete

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