Berks County to Spend $25K Vetting 600 Penn Purchase

The Berks County Board of Commissioners meets Thursday, September 10, 2026, at 10 a.m. at the Berks County Services Center, 633 Court Street, Reading, with a Microsoft Teams option to watch and comment from home. Like last week, this is mostly a mid-year money agenda. The item most residents have been following: the county starts spending to inspect and appraise the former Wells Fargo tower at 600 Penn Street before it closes the purchase.

The next step on the 600 Penn tower

Inside the budget resolution, Resolution 274.2026, is a line that appropriates $25,225 from the county's general-fund balance "to provide for due diligence study, appraisal, and environmental study related to the purchase of 600 Penn St." Due diligence is the inspection work a buyer does before finishing a deal: checking the building's condition, what it is worth, and whether there are environmental problems to clean up.

This is the first money the county has put toward examining the building itself. Berks signed a $7.235 million letter of intent this summer to buy the tower as swing space while the aging courthouse is repaired, voted August 27 to authorize an agreement of sale subject to the county solicitor's review, and set aside a $500,000 escrow deposit September 3. We covered those steps in our report on the 600 Penn Street purchase and our Sept. 3 recap. The agenda does not list a closing date, and the purchase price beyond the July letter of intent has not been made public.

An $8.5 million budget shuffle

Resolution 274.2026 also authorizes $8,521,591 in budget transfers and $401,250 in appropriations, per a listing dated September 4. Most of that total is bookkeeping rather than new spending. About $6.4 million moves between Health Choices accounts, the county's Medicaid behavioral-health program, "to pay for year-end invoicing," and a $1,532,289 shift within the Juvenile Probation Office corrects what the county calls "a program allocation error." Both move money between accounts rather than adding to the budget.

A few smaller items touch residents more directly:

• $21,075 to cover half the training cost for two new Sheriff's Office K-9 handlers.
• $15,000 in federal forfeiture money for the District Attorney's Office "for assistance with fraud and cryptocurrency investigations."
• $20,383 from contingency, plus a $163,601 insurance-reimbursement appropriation, to repair wind damage to the ceiling of the Heritage Center Park maintenance building.

A $100,000 lawsuit settlement

The contract agenda, dated September 4, includes a settlement in a personal-injury lawsuit against the county over a motor-vehicle accident, filed in the Berks County Court of Common Pleas at Docket No. 21-10665. The agenda lists the total value of the settlement at $100,000 and the funding source as "100% County up to insurance deductible." The agenda does not spell out how that $100,000 splits between the county and its insurer, and it gives no details beyond calling it a motor-vehicle accident.

Child-welfare contracts, hires, and state filings

Much of the rest of the agenda is the routine machinery of county government. Two resolutions, 277.2026 and 278.2026, keep state child-welfare funding flowing: one commits the county's share of the 2027-2028 Children and Youth Services needs-based budget, and the other appeals the state's final 2026-27 child-welfare allocation. The contract agenda sets per-day rates the county pays to house children in county care, including $488.45 a day at Gentle Options Homes, $425.21 at Heroic Healing Group, and up to $790.26 a day for juvenile detention at the Montgomery County Youth Center.

Resolution 275.2026 promotes a Children and Youth Services caseworker to supervisor at $74,916 and moves an assistant district attorney into the Solicitor's Office as an assistant county solicitor at $97,000. The contract agenda also approves a three-year LexisNexis legal-research subscription for the Public Defender's Office at up to $31,716, and adds $19,450 in state grant money to an Area Agency on Aging contract to build a pickleball court at the Fleetwood senior center.

How to attend or comment

• In person: Berks County Services Center, 633 Court Street, Reading. Doors open before 10 a.m.
• Online: a Teams link is posted with the agenda on the county meetings page.
• Comment rules: give your first name, last name, and municipality; one comment per person; online comments go through the Teams Q&A and are read aloud; the comment period is capped at 30 minutes, with in-person speakers first.

The county's calendar also lists an Election Board meeting at 11 a.m., after the commissioners adjourn and ahead of the November 3 general election, though that board meets only as needed. New to this? See how to speak at a commissioners meeting, and for what the county runs versus the state and your township, how Berks County government works. A recap will follow once the county posts the meeting video or minutes.