Solomon Creek wall project in Wilkes-Barre nears completion

WILKES-BARRE — If there ever was a time when the city could use a few million dollars, it’s now as it expects to record a sizable deficit at the end of the year.

Mayor George Brown estimated Wilkes-Barre the budget shortfall to be more than $4 million, largely due to the economic impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The focus has been on finances and the daily operations, but to a lesser extent the mayor and his administration have had to clear up the misconception it has millions of dollars left over from the Solomon Creek wall reconstruction project.

At the Sept. 10 city council, Brown and Finance Officer Brett Kittrick explained why not all of the more than $6 million in state funds awarded for the project was spent. Most of the funding was specifically tied to disaster relief for damage sustained during the tropical storms of Irene and Lee in 2011 and the city was eligible for just a fraction of it.

The state Department of Community and Economy Development Thursday said it funded a total of $3,818,890 for the project that was awarded a combined $6,069,238 in grants. The remainder is retained by the state and used elsewhere.

“Whatever we don’t use, it’s money we don’t have,” Brown said Thursday, reiterating what he’s previously stated.

The state didn’t cut the city a check for the full amount. The way it works is the city bids the project, awards it and requests payment from the state for the work completed. As a result, the balance decreases each time the state distributes funds to the city.

“It’s an account that’s out there that’s a draw down,” Brown said.

The city has no extra money from the project to pave streets, put into the pension plans or fund other infrastructure projects. “We’re not playing with an extra dime,” Brown stressed at the council meeting.

Kittrick too explained the rules that the city must play by.

DCED awarded a Disaster Recovery Grant in 2017 for the amount of $2,357,000 and another one for $1,461,890 in 2018 to the city for the 2011 storms. Together they accounted for 63 percent of the total funding from the state.

But as Kittrick said at the council meeting, “we needed to be able to substantiate the expenditures and prove they were directly tied to those storms and we only had I think a little over a million dollars in such expenditures.”

The city submitted $1,171,816 in storm-related expenses, according to DCED. The state retained the remaining $2,647,074 and is liquidating it for projects elsewhere.

The same applied to one of the $500,000 Local Share Account grants the city was awarded in 2014 to retrofit the floodgates on the four bridges over the creek at South Franklin, Regent, Barney and Waller streets. A total of $128,000 was disbursed for the work, according to DCED.

State Sen. John Yudichak, I-Swoyersville, spearheaded the efforts to secure funding for the reconstruction of the creek channel wall built in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration. The WPA, one of the alphabet agencies created by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression put millions to work on public works projects under his New Deal.

“The good news is the project came in on time and on budget,” Yudichak said Friday.

“Everything’s accounted for. DCED keeps good books and the city keeps good books,” Yudichak said.

It wasn’t oversold from a funding standpoint, Yudichak added.

Something had to be done repair the wall, especially after a section fell into the creek bed in December 2016, and provide flood protection to homes and businesses in South Wilkes-Barre that had been inundated before during high water events, Yudichak noted.

The project that began in late 2018 is expected to be completed within four to six weeks. Contractor Don E. Bower Inc. of Berwick has been doing the work that includes reconstruction of the wall and the construction of a pump station near the intersection of Vulcan and Brook streets.

Apart from the state funds, the city allocated approximately $4.4 million from a bond refinancing deal toward the project. It appears not all of it will be needed, however. But in this case, the city will be able to use approximately $1 million for other capital projects, including a new elevator at City Hall.

At its Sept. 10 meeting city council approved the first of two votes needed to amend the 2017 ordinance for the refinancing to spell out how the left over funds can be used.