At last night's meeting of Northampton County Council, all nine members voted for a Budget Amendment that allocates $7 million from the county to Gracedale.
In a message to Council, Executive Tara Zrinski explained that the county transfer was needed so that the nursing home's 2025 expenditures are covered.
"We carefully reviewed each departmental budget to identify unspent funds, including savings from vacancies, deferred purchases and other unused allocations, and we're able to reallocate approximately 7 million to fully cover Graysdale's 2025 expenditures."
"The remaining deficit reflects timing differences between when expenses are incurred and when reimbursements are received."
"Approving these amendments will allow us to balance the 2025 budget as required by law and fulfill our shared responsibility for sound fiscal management.
Still no discussion or discovery on what happened to the Intergovernmental Transfer funds?
ReplyDeleteThey just vanished ?
No, I have heard that the IGT will be about $20 million ($10 million less than hoped for)
DeleteAnd so it begins. McClure’s campaign slogan that he didn’t raise taxes, but “I screwed the county and taxpayers for the next few years because I didn’t fund anything that was needed”. Now here’s $7 million in just two months to help Gracedale meet its obligations. Pension plans not funded and Tara will come out looking like the bad guy because McClure had his eye on Congress. Taxes will go up. Remember this people. McClure doesn’t deserve Congress, he’ll screw us even more!! He won’t have people like Warren and Keegan covering for him.
ReplyDeleteSo how much is "the remaining deficit?" Notice how this is being done to balance last year's McClure budget. The 2026 budget they passed anticipated no county contribution. When will that be amended to reflect reality?
ReplyDelete2027
DeleteIf the 2026 budget reflected no changes, where and how did the 7 million dollar Gracedale bail out come from?
DeleteWell at least the corrections officers know where those 32 positions went too??? The old director told county council the jail was budgeted for 212 officers. Now all of a sudden the jail is 180 officers.
ReplyDeleteLet the mandates keep on coming for the COs. F them. Gonna be a fun summer.
DeleteBail! Bail! Bail! Keep bailing! We need more buckets of taxpayer money!
ReplyDeleteBend over county residents. McClures funny money and no tax increase for 8 years is about to bite you.
ReplyDeleteThat she can find 7 million in play money is more proof of McClures fiscal shenanigans.
ReplyDeleteUh she was the controller
DeleteWho was the county controller? 🙄🤔🤔🤔🤔
DeleteThe new executive
DeleteAre the retention bonuses that council approved going to be paid to the employees?
ReplyDeleteWill this drama ever get closure? Norco still a mess. New people same old.
ReplyDeleteThat is ridiculous. Guess that is why the taxes never went up. Guess they will now. Another thing that McClueless did! He needs to be gone from the Solicitor's Office before he F's more up at taxpayer's expense.
ReplyDeleteEveryone knew this was coming.
ReplyDeleteI am not a John Brown fan, but when are the apologies going to start? He called this - and before you say $7MM is not $15MM, give it time.
ReplyDeleteStill not a Brown fan…
DeleteDon’t bother reaching out to
ReplyDeleteanyone on council about Gracedale. There was no choice for some and some had no idea what they were voting for.
Agreed. It is time, though, for council to get a reality check and stop doing a “wait and see”.
DeleteThe budget can be done to account for January to December cash received so I the future this excuse can't happen. It just takes one year budget to fix and then no more games like this. Used to be in lehigh county and then it was adjusted one year with an obvious loss but easier each year thereafter and none of these games of moving money
ReplyDeleteMust disagree here. This Gracedale debacle did not happen in a void. Over the past few years, council and administration kept kicking the Gracedale concerns under the rug and problems behind their backs. Finally, there can be no further co-mingling of funds and behind the scenes ignoring of personnel problems. This all lands squarely in the hands of the administration, managers, and Gracedale’s council liaison overseers. Fix it or take failure responsibility.
ReplyDeleteWill someone please tell Tara to get a reality check? She has no idea what she is doing and she has some just proclaiming her glory. A long road (or maybe short) for Gracedale. Depends how many more citations there will be or how much money will be given before citizens call it what it is.
DeleteGood call voters!!!! Where is Amy!!!!!
ReplyDeleteBoy do those people like to throw away our money.
ReplyDeleteIn 6 months we will either get a real accountable update about Gracedale’s pending licensing and tangible fixes , or we will, again, be given lip service
ReplyDeleteAs to all the proposed and yet to be realized,
creative ideas to right the Gracedale faults.
Where exactly is the breakdown of the 7 million coming from?
ReplyDeleteThe executive was the controller for a bit, so it will be easy to go back and demonstrate transparency on where and how the 7 million was determined and where its origin was.
ReplyDeleteWhen the term “intermingling “ funds was used,
ReplyDeleteSomeone from council should have questioned why?