40 Percent of Pennsylvanians Live in Financially Distressed Towns
Time to fire your local officeholders
HARRISBURG — More than 5.2 million Pennsylvanians — 41 percent of the state's 12.6 million residents — live in a city, township or borough facing some form of financial distress.
And civic leaders warned on Monday that things are probably going to get worse before they get better.
Ed Pawlowski, mayor of Allentown, said municipal pension costs are eating a hole in his budget. Costs rose from $6 million last year to more than $18 million this year and will climb to $31 million within a few years. By 2015, fully 30 percent of Allentown's budget will pay for benefits to retired city workers, police officers and firefighters, he said.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?