Berks County OKs $25K to Vet 600 Penn Tower Purchase

The Berks County Board of Commissioners met Thursday, September 10, 2026, and approved a mid-year budget package that starts spending money to inspect and appraise the office tower at 600 Penn Street, moves $8.5 million between accounts, and settles a personal-injury lawsuit against the county for $100,000. The board approved its agenda as a single block, the way it runs every meeting, so every resolution on it passed together.

$25,225 to inspect the 600 Penn tower

Resolution 274.2026 authorized a batch of 2026 budget changes. One line inside it 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 checking a buyer does before finishing a deal: 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 former Wells Fargo 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. The earlier steps committed to the purchase; this one pays to look the building over before closing. The background is in our report on the 600 Penn Street purchase and our Sept. 3 recap. The agenda still lists no closing date, and the price beyond the July letter of intent has not been made public.

An $8.5 million budget shuffle

The rest of Resolution 274.2026 moves $8,521,591 between accounts and appropriates another $401,250, 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 existing accounts.

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, included 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 costs, 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 authorizes a budget appeal of the state's final 2026-27 child-welfare allocation. The contract agenda sets the 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 promoted a Children and Youth Services caseworker to supervisor at $74,916 and moved an assistant district attorney into the Solicitor's Office as an assistant county solicitor at $97,000, and cleared a temporary senior accountant for the Controller's Office. Resolution 276.2026 authorized the county's year-end fiscal report to the state on the Council on Chemical Abuse, the county agency that funds local drug-and-alcohol treatment and prevention. The contract agenda also approved a three-year LexisNexis legal-research subscription for the Public Defender's Office at up to $31,716, and added $19,450 in state grant money to an Area Agency on Aging contract to build a pickleball court at the Fleetwood senior center.

How the vote worked

Berks commissioners approve their agenda as a single block rather than voting on each resolution one by one. The meeting video runs the meeting in order: the call to order, the agenda items read, the agenda approved, reports from the Treasurer and Controller, a report from the chief operations officer, and commissioners' comments. The county had not posted written minutes of the September 10 meeting at publication; they are due for approval at the next meeting, and we will update this recap if they show any change.

The next commissioners' board meeting is Thursday, September 17, 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.