Berks County Joins Arena Refinancing, Plans Courthouse Move

The Berks County Board of Commissioners met Thursday, August 20, 2026, and approved the county's part in a bond refinancing by the public authority that runs the Santander Arena, hired an architect to plan moving offices out of the aging courthouse, and bought new machines to count this November's ballots. The board approved its agenda as a single block, the way it runs every meeting.

A hand in the arena authority's bond refinancing

The meeting opened with a presentation from Peter T. Edelman of the law firm Stevens & Lee, along with Matthew Mayer, solicitor for the Berks County Convention Center Authority, and Michele Richards, the authority's treasurer, on the authority's plan to refinance its debt. The board then adopted the resolution that goes with it (244.2026).

The Berks County Convention Center Authority is a joint public authority the County of Berks and the City of Reading created in 1996, with a board the two governments appoint. It oversees the Santander Arena and the Santander Performing Arts Center in downtown Reading. Like most public projects that size, the arena was built with borrowed money, and public bodies periodically refinance that borrowing to change the terms.

Resolution 244.2026 authorizes the county to sign an agreement with the authority and Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company, the bank acting as trustee for the bondholders. The county is one of the two governments behind the authority, and it collects a hotel room rental tax that helps fund the convention-center operation. Under state law, the county cannot lower that hotel tax rate until the bonds the authority has pledged against it are paid off. The resolution does not put a dollar figure on the refinancing or spell out the terms of the county's agreement, and the size of the deal and which bonds it covers were not laid out in the public record.

An architect to plan moving offices out of the courthouse

The board hired an architecture firm, Beers + Hoffman, for up to $82,675 to write a "strategic master plan for the depopulation and relocation of functions currently housed within the Berks County Courthouse," plus a companion plan for the Services Center and 600 Penn Street. The county is paying for it in full.

That is the planning stage of a move the county has been building toward. Berks signed a $7.235 million letter of intent this summer, as we reported, to buy the former Wells Fargo tower at 600 Penn Street as swing space while the courthouse is repaired; the background is in our report on the 600 Penn Street purchase. This study is meant to decide which offices leave the courthouse and where they go.

New scanners to count November's ballots

The county bought two ES&S DS950 high-speed scanners and tabulators for the Election Services office, at a cost not to exceed $304,500, paid entirely with county money. The purchase lands with the November 3 general election about 11 weeks out. A separate line in the budget resolution shifts state Election Integrity grant money to cover allowable costs from the 2026 primary. For the basics on voting locally, see our Berks County election guide.

The rest of the money

Resolution 245.2026 authorized $860,505 in budget transfers and $373,083 in new appropriations, per a listing dated August 14. The larger and more notable pieces:

• Money to move the county website to a new hosting provider.
• Fund-balance spending on facilities: change orders on a Tributary Wall Rebuild, plus one added security camera each at the wastewater-treatment control building and the steam plant.
• New state grant money, with a county match, passed through to Children and Youth Services placements, and federal money to host a PA CareerLink hiring-help day.
• Money to prepare the county's 2025 financial audit.

The contract list, dated August 17, carried several larger dollar items:

• Up to $701,076 in carried-over ARPA money, administered through the state, for community-based services for people with intellectual disabilities.
• Up to $288,000 for the first phase of an HVAC control-system retrofit at Berks Heim, the county nursing home.
• Up to $113,854 in change-order work at a county facility, re-routing a flue and replacing a hot-water valve.
• A juvenile-detention services agreement with Northampton County at $435 per day, and two foster-care and residential placement contracts for children in county care.
• A settlement that pays the county $32,444 to close out a collection claim.

The rest was routine: two social-work tuition agreements for Children and Youth caseworkers, an agreement letting the District Attorney's Office report federal drug-forfeiture money, a grant application for the DA's victim-services unit, Berks Heim policy approvals, one new hire in Information Systems, project-management software, the weekly run of payments, and approval of the August 13 minutes.

How the vote worked

Berks commissioners approve their agenda as a single block rather than voting on each resolution separately. The meeting video runs the meeting in order: the call to order, the presentation on the arena bonds, the agenda items read, the agenda approved, reports from the Treasurer and Controller, commissioners' comments, row officers' comments, and a public-comment period. The county had not posted written minutes of the August 20 meeting at publication, and we will update this recap if they show any change.

The next commissioners' board meeting is Thursday, August 27, at 10 a.m. at the Berks County Services Center, 633 Court Street, Reading. For how these meetings run and how to speak at one, see our guide, and for what the county controls versus the state and your township, see how Berks County government works.