A few years ago while attending a conference in Washington, I stopped into a souvenir shop and found a coffee mug with George Washington’s portrait on it. On the other side of the mug it reads, “Blaming the last Administration, a D.C. tradition since 1797.”
It’s funny because it’s true. It’s as American as mom, baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. I did when I was the county executive, and now my successor, Tara Zrinski, is too. I’m not complaining — it’s fair game. It’s not always fun to bear the weight of decisions made before you assumed office, however, the truth of what happened and why matters, too.
Zrinski often says she inherited “fires” to put out, and her director of administration recently called our last budget “dishonest,” necessitating a 43% tax hike. So, I thought I’d provide a little context with respect to the decisions we took, and the county we actually left for the Zrinski administration at the end of our eight years.
As we walked out the door, we left $40 million in cash for the new executive to start her term with in January. This is probably what has allowed her to continue to add spending to the county budget, while simultaneously decrying the 2026 budget as not being adequate to meet the county’s needs.
One of the things a well-run municipal government has is the capacity to borrow money. Despite the fact that it is tempting to pay for large capital projects such as our state-of-the-art forensic center out of the general fund, that would cause larger and more frequent property tax increases. We left the Zrinkski administration with $1.2 billion in borrowing capacity.
A healthy municipal government will have an excellent bond rating. At the end of my time as county executive, the county’s bond rating was AA1. It is my understanding that it was one of, if not the, best bond ratings of any municipal government in the Lehigh Valley at the time. An excellent bond rating is important because it makes the cost of borrowing money cheaper — which in the end is a benefit to the taxpayer. Governments that are on “fire” or “dishonest” don’t have AA1 bond ratings.
Another oft-cited issue the Zrinski administration supposedly inherited was the fact that we did not make any contributions to the county employees pension fund in the 2026 budget. That’s true and here’s why. Over the previous seven budget cycles, we deposited nearly $100 million into that pension fund.
That equals one entire year’s worth of county property taxes. When we left, the pension fund had $566.6 million in it. The fund that covers county retirees’ health care had $59.2 million. Combined the funds stood at $625.9 million.
At points during my two terms, those funds were nearly 100% funded. At the end of 2025, the pension fund was 93% funded. Experts agree a stable pension fund is properly funded at 80%. Obviously, we were well above that percentage The retirees received cost of living adjustments from the retirement board in five of the eight years that I was chair of the Retirement Board.
Another sign of good government is what it does with the money it borrows and how it handles that long-term debt. When I assumed office, the county’s debt was $110.9 million. By 2024, we had reduced that to $69.9 million.
We borrowed money twice. The first time was to build the forensic center. We had to borrow money for a second time last year to raze and replace a 50-year-old parking garage that was falling down, so at the end of my time the long-term debt stood at $84.4 million.
There is also this ridiculous notion that our very strong record of fiscal and financial management was somehow achieved “on the backs of our employees.” It couldn’t be further from the truth. People who work for the county have excellent health benefits. And, for eight years, I did not ask them to pay one dime more for them — the cost of health insurance did not rise for county employees during my two terms. If you know of another very large employer where that happened, please let me know.
What about county employees’ wages? We took great pains to make sure we addressed the positions and departments that had historically been undercompensated. We did this in a careful and systematic way over a period of years in order not to trigger the necessity for large tax increases.
The pay of the average county employee rose nearly 30% over the last eight years. By the way, I’m not arguing that they don’t have difficult jobs or that they don’t deserve the compensation they receive. Clearly, I’ve proven otherwise. But, an almost 5-mill tax increase because they’re undercompensated? I don’t think so.
Eight balanced budgets. Seven with no tax increase, and one, in 2022, that cut property taxes — which to date has saved taxpayers $40 million. We cut spending in each budget without cutting vital programs or services. In fact, we added new services.
I’m not arguing that taxes never need to go up, nor am I arguing that Executive Zrinski’s priorities are misplaced. I’m just simply saying that while it’s convenient to blame the previous administration, start with honesty.
This is a contributed opinion column. Lamont G. McClure is the former executive of Northampton County. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author(s), and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. For more details on commentaries, read our guide to guest opinions at mcall.com/opinion.