The author of this op-ed, Josh Portney, is a member of State College Borough Council.
Now that the ink is dry on the Solar Power Purchase Agreement for Centre County, it’s important to reflect on the process that led us here. I have been outspoken on this issue, and my concerns have always been rooted in securing the best deal for taxpayers and ensuring that their dollars are spent responsibly.
In February 2024, the SPPA contracts were sent to elected officials, only to be pulled back in March for “more legal review” without a full explanation. In response, I inquired who would be paying for this additional review, and why. The answers I received yielded some serious concerns.
The State College Area School District — the lead entity and fiduciary of the project — approved a strict Do Not Exceed legal fee limit of $165,000 in September 2023. However, in late August 2024, it was announced that the SPPA’s attorney had exceeded that amount by more than $193,000. While the attorney agreed to waive $70,000, the entities were still faced with an additional amount of $123,000 – incurred over the existing limit – to retroactively approve.
My first question: Who authorized the attorney to continue working, even if “at-risk”? Initially, SPPA leaders indicated that the SPPA Project Management team had done so.
At the Sept. 9, 2024 State College Borough Council Meeting, Sustainability Planner Pam Adams stated they were fully aware that the attorney had exceeded this fiduciary limit (and did nothing to stop it), but “it got lost in the shuffle.” This information was not communicated back to participating entities at the time.
At the State College Area School Board’s Aug. 19, 2024 meeting, the board’s Vice-President, Deb Anderson, mentioned: “We imposed the Do Not Exceed because I think there was some concern among the Board at that time that if the cost got too high, we would pull the plug and stop it.”
By neglecting to inform the entities that the attorney’s work exceeded the budget, the SPPA Working Group denied them the opportunity to consider this additional financial cost.
However, recent comments from a leading Centre Region official and SPPA Working Group leader indicate that neither the SPPA Working Group nor the Project Management team “[ever] authorized” the attorney to continue working at-risk, contradicting previous statements from elected officials and documented meeting minutes.
If this new information is true — that the SPPA Project Management team and Working Group were unaware that the attorney was working beyond the scope of the approved budget limit — then the attorney’s rogue “at-risk” actions should NOT have been rewarded with taxpayer money under any circumstances.
However, if this information is false and these elected officials were being dishonest with the public, and the work truly was authorized “at-risk,” then I’ll reiterate my strong contention
regarding “at-risk financing”: it should NEVER again be permitted when dealing with taxpayer dollars.
When the participating entities were asked to vote to retroactively approve the additional legal fee expense, we were told to only do so if we judged it to be fair and reasonable. My requests for copies of the attorney’s timesheets, which document the work performed and would help determine whether the excess was reasonable, have gone entirely unfilled to this day.
Proponents of this deal have argued that simply securing the contracts justifies the additional expenses. To that, I ask why they were unable to achieve this for the originally approved $165,000?
A municipal group in Southeastern Pennsylvania with more than three times the size of our SPPA’s energy commitment was able to accomplish a similar clean energy purchasing agreement with legal expenses ($15,000) amounting to only a fraction of the costs incurred here.
At the Sept. 11, 2024 Patton Township Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Betsy Whitman proclaimed “The contracts that we have worked out…are now being used as exemplars on a website that promotes power purchase agreement establishments.”
This has led some to question the possibility of these additional legal fee expenses being incurred to develop a template for municipal entities outside of Centre County, saving them thousands on their PPA journeys at the expense of our local taxpayers.
SPPA officials have confirmed that the length of the 15-year contract guarantees the developer’s rate of return. If electricity prices decrease over that long period of time, entities cannot legally exit the agreement and take advantage of cheaper rates without a costly buyout.
On numerous occasions, I raised concerns about this marred process and was chided for it. Then, a legal memo later confirmed that the SPPA Working Group lacked “the power or authority to pay bills or otherwise expend money without COG General Forum approval.”
Legal interpretations aside, the elected officials were placed in the difficult position of deciding whether to retroactively approve expenses that they had no say in beforehand. This was the result of an ill-conceived process.
Where integrity in public service is concerned, I will continue to speak out and advocate for more responsible fiduciary practices within our local government.
As members of our community announce their candidacies for municipal government offices this year, I encourage you to ask them their position on “at-risk financing,” and where their priorities lie when it comes to accountability and transparency regarding the spending of your tax dollars.
