2007 News
January 17, 2007
Bucks County Commissioners Continue Steady Flow of Good News Through Financial, Agricultural Land Preservation Resolutions
During its second meeting of 2007, the Bucks County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved resolutions for 13 departments and the issuance of $44 million of general obligation bonds to help fund construction of certain county facilities and various other projects and improvements.
The bond issuance, or Ordinance 126, followed closely on the heels of news that Moody’s Investor Service has upgraded the county’s credit rating to Aa1, its highest rating in 20 years.
“In all honesty, we’re ahead of where we thought we’d be,” noted Hessenthaler, who pledged to continue striving for a AAA rating – the highest Moody’s rating, one step above Aa1.
The $44 million, 15-year bond was issued through PNC Bank, with additional underwriting by American Securities, Wachovia and A.G. Edwards. After its Feb. 22 closing, the bond funds will be used by county Public Works officials to fund the new Doylestown parking garage (for which renderings will be available next month), the new 9-1-1 center in Ivyland, two new municipal courts, a fire school, the ERP implementation, and various open-space projects.
The overriding theme of the meeting was encapsulated by county Chief Operating Officer David M. Sanko, who credited the commissioners, Finance Director Brian Hessenthaler, Deputy Finance Director David Boscola, Treasurer Bill Snyder and Controller Raymond McHugh for their commitment to “solid fiscal management.”
McHugh, along with Commissioner Chairman Charles H. Martin and fellow commissioners James F. Cawley, Esq. and Sandra A. Miller, accepted a rebate check for $19,427 for the county’s participation in PNC Bank’s P-Card program. This unique program, which returns a percentage of county business credit card expenditures, recently was trumpeted to other Pennsylvania counties during the statewide controller’s conference.
“This is a great way to get the county off to a good start for 2007,” Martin said before accepting the check from PNC Bank Vice President Jeff Warner. “We appreciate PNC’s ideas and their working with us.”
The commissioners’ ongoing commitment to agricultural land preservation moved to the fore again through a $2 million allocation to secure state matching funds. According to Director of Agricultural Land Preservation Rich Harvey, this is an “excellent allocation” that will allow his department to continue working on nine pending agreements of sale totaling 801 acres. The county’s goal of preserving 10,000 acres (in year 10 of a 10-year bond issue) currently stands at 100 farms and 9,168 acres. The proposed properties would bring the county within acres of the 10,000-acre milestone.
“The goal is in sight,” Martin said after Harvey presented his report.
For the Board of Elections, the commissioners approved an agreement to install the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s SURE Portal system to access voter registration information. According to Board of Elections Deputy Director Suzanne Kravitz, the system will allow county officials to process applications faster while linking the county department to the state database.
The commissioners also authorized a one-year contract for Information Services application programming support as systems are moved off the mainframe. In the words of Chief Information Officer Don Jacobs, the contract also will assist with “specialized work associated with the implementation of the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software.”
Director of Human Services Charles Kane elaborated on a one-year contract to provide health care personnel for the county-operated Neshaminy Manor facility, explaining that the county has lowered its use of contract nurses by more than half over the last year through an increased commitment to staff nursing recruitment.
(Picture: from left to right--Commissioner Charles Martin, PNC Bank's Robbin Sheffield, PNC Bank's Jeffrey Warner, Controller Raymond McHugh, Commissioner Sandra Miller and Commissioner James Cawley)