ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The Lehigh County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday approved a measure supporting up to $480 million in hospital revenue bonds for projects connected to St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network.<\/p>\n
Projects include the acquisition of Geisinger Health\u2019s ownership interest in the hospital currently operating as Geisinger St. Luke\u2019s Hospital in Orwigsburg, along with an emergency department expansion and development of a medical office building on that campus.<\/p>\n
The proposal would allow the Lehigh County General Purpose Authority to issue bonds for construction, renovations, equipment purchases and refinancing of previous debt tied to St. Luke\u2019s hospitals and affiliated facilities in Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe and Schuylkill counties.<\/p>\n
According to Samantha Pearson, the county\u2019s acting director of Community and Economic Development, the county receives an application fee of 10 basis points for refinancing or 20 basis points for new financing through General Purpose Authority bond financing.<\/p>\n
For the $480 million proposal, Pearson said about $960,000 could be generated through the project, though the amount would be shared with other parties involved in the financing process.<\/p>\n
The resolution states the bonds would not constitute debt for Lehigh County or taxpayers, and would be repaid through revenues tied to the health network and associated financing agreements.<\/p>\n
According to county documents, officials held a public hearing on May 21 as part of federal requirements for tax-exempt bond financing.<\/p>\n
Youth opioid prevention programs<\/p>\n
Commissioners also approved measures from the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office outlining plans to distribute more than $252,000 in opioid settlement funds to county youth prevention and intervention programs.<\/p>\n
The ordinances award grants to organizations for programs focused on opioid prevention, counseling, mentoring and family support.<\/p>\n
Funding includes about $91,000 for Valley Youth House programs in the Allentown School District, about $83,000 for foster-youth mentoring through Keystone Family Alliance, $21,112 for prevention programming by Center for Humanistic Change and $12,000 for a youth restoration and opioid prevention initiative at Grace Deliverance Baptist Church.<\/p>\n
Ripple Community Inc. also will receive $45,000 for an on-site therapist at The Service Hub to provide skilled, on-demand support to individuals who are outside of the formal services system and who are suffering from substance use disorders such as opioid use disorder and common co-morbidities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey serve a community that is frequently underserved and not quite ready to participate in traditional standard services,\u201d District Attorney Gavin Holihan said.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Jon Irons said the funds are intended to help address the addiction crisis affecting Lehigh County and other communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad to see the district attorney using the funds in a preventative way. School-based work is an important step and a way to talk about prevention and opioids and get a little upstream of challenges that we\u2019re facing in both juvenile detention and in the jail,\u201d Irons said.<\/p>\n
According to the measure, the district attorney\u2019s office has received more than $1.7 million from national opioid settlements involving manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Commissioner Zach Cole-Borghi abstained from the vote.<\/p>\n
Food assistance funds<\/p>\n
The board also approved reallocating about $25,000 in unused federal CARES Act funding to food assistance organizations, including Second Harvest Food Bank of the Lehigh Valley and Northeast Pennsylvania, Parkland CARES and the Whitehall-Coplay Hunger Initiative.<\/p>\n
\u201cRising prices across the board are definitely putting pressure on the community and these organizations are stepping up to meet that need as much as possible. I\u2019m happy to support this reallocation that will at least put a little bit of extra cash in their pockets to meet that need,\u201d Irons said.<\/p>\n
Vital Healthcare Solutions<\/p>\n
Commissioners additionally approved an agreement with Vital Healthcare Solutions to provide psychiatric, psychological and behavioral health services to residents at Cedarbrook Senior Care and Rehabilitation facilities in Allentown and Fountain Hill.<\/p>\n
Under the agreement, Vital Healthcare Solutions will provide services through licensed medical and behavioral health professionals at the county-owned nursing facilities. The provider will bill patients or third parties directly for services rather than the county.<\/p>\n
The four-year agreement runs through Dec. 31, 2029.<\/p>\n
County documents state the contract includes psychiatric, psychological and behavioral health support for Cedarbrook residents, along with insurance, confidentiality and oversight requirements tied to patient care and records management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The Lehigh County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday approved a measure supporting up to $480…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,1218,90298,90299,9570,90297,2149,716,90300,23452,90296,2759,90295,1222],"class_list":["post-204936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-gavin-holihan","tag-geisinger-st-lukes-hospital","tag-general-purpose-authority","tag-jon-irons","tag-keystone-family-alliance","tag-lehigh-county-board-of-commissioners","tag-lehigh-county-district-attorneys-office","tag-lehigh-county-general-purpose-authority","tag-ripple-community-inc","tag-samantha-pearson","tag-university-health-network","tag-vital-healthcare-solutions","tag-zach-cole-borghi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}