York County panel to present final report on Pennies overruns

The ad hoc citizens’ committee reviewing York County’s “Pennies for Progress” program will be presenting its final report to the County Council within two weeks.

“Projects were, I felt, mismanaged, delayed, ballooned ... and there was no accountability from the county manager or program manager at the time,” committee member Paul Anderko told the council’s Pennies committee on Monday.

Anderko’s committee, appointed by the council ahead of next year’s planned referendum on a fourth round of road projects funded by York County’s penny sales tax, previously estimated the three previous rounds of Pennies projects have a total of more than $100 million in cost overruns.

Council members appointed the committee – made up of four county residents – to provide an outside review of past performance of the programs initiated by the voters in 1997, 2003 and 2011. The full report will include the group’s recommendations for changes to Pennies 4, which Anderko outlined in part to the Pennies committee.

York County should have stricter oversight of projects through its own staff. The first Pennies program ran $70 million over the amount approved in the 1997 referendum while under the direction of outside engineering consultants CME, and the budget for Pennies 2 was revised down after county engineers took over management of the program in 2009, from $173 million to $165.4 million.

But since 31 of 69 projects from Pennies 2 had to be carried over to Pennies 3 due to a lack of funding, and two others were dropped altogether, the citizens’ committee estimates that the revised budget is still inflated by $44 million above the remaining projects’ budget approved by voters in 2003.

“The current staff is doing a great job,” Anderko said.

An audit by the firm Greene, Finney and Horton looked into a selected group of past projects that went over budget and concluded the initial estimates on the projects were too low, often using generic “shot in the dark” figures. Auditors even faulted county administration for failing to “provide complete and accurate information” on some projects.

The citizens’ committee report is likely to recommend more specific language for projects – setting a number of lanes for an expanded road rather than “multi-lane” – and more requirements for meeting spending targets. Addressing maintenance issues alongside new road projects is key to getting support, said Anderko, who also wants to see a smaller number of projects budgeted.

“Don’t put too many on there, because half are of them are never completed,” Anderko said.

Anderko is worried about the tendency for projects approved in one round of Pennies to move over to the next without being completed ... and some projects from Pennies 3 could roll over to the next Pennies referendum.

Many people vote for the project list because they support a project in their area, Anderko said, “but it will take until Pennies 7 or 8 until they get to it.”

This story was originally published June 6, 2016 at 9:12 PM with the headline "York County panel to present final report on Pennies overruns."