Thursday, February 18, 2010
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Gov. Ed Rendell says the state can’t bail out the state’s most debt-laden city.
Rendell, however, told the Patriot-News on Wednesday after a meeting with Harrisburg Mayor Linda Thompson that her plan to pay down debt is a workable one.
Thompson is looking to sell city assets and wants Dauphin County to increase the trash-dumping fees it pays to the Harrisburg Authority.
Rendell says it is up to the city to solve its problem, although he offered help from Department of Banking and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency.
Harrisburg has guaranteed the $288 million debt on the city’s trash incinerator.
Neither the city nor the Harrisburg Authority, which operates the incinerator, however, have the cash to meet $68 million in debt payments due this year.