Berks County Sets Up Escrow for 600 Penn Tower Purchase

The Berks County Board of Commissioners meets Thursday, September 17, 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. The agenda is shorter than the money-heavy meetings of the past few weeks. Its lead item is the next legal step toward buying the former Wells Fargo tower at 600 Penn Street: an agreement setting up how the county's escrow deposit will be held.

An escrow agreement for the 600 Penn tower

Resolution 284.2026 authorizes the county to sign an Earnest Money Escrow Agreement among 600 Penn Street, LP, the County of Berks, and First American Abstract, which would act as the escrow agent. Escrow is money a buyer places with a neutral third party to hold until a sale closes. This agreement is the mechanism for holding the deposit the county set aside on September 3, when it appropriated $500,000 from its general-fund balance for "the required escrow deposit for the purchase of 600 Penn."

The county has moved through this purchase in steps: a $7.235 million letter of intent this summer, a vote August 27 to authorize an agreement of sale subject to the county solicitor's review, the September 3 escrow appropriation, and $25,225 approved September 10 to inspect, appraise, and run environmental testing on the building. We tracked those steps in our report on the 600 Penn Street purchase and our Sept. 10 recap. The county wants the tower as swing space while the aging courthouse is repaired. The agenda lists no closing date, and no purchase price beyond the July letter of intent has been made public.

New leadership at the county jail

Resolution 281.2026 carries five hires and promotions, most of them at the county jail. The largest is the appointment of a Deputy Warden of Custody at the Berks County Jail System at $113,000. The list also promotes a jail employee to sergeant at $82,531, adds a payroll support worker at the jail at $51,000, names an interim captain in the Sheriff's Office at $85,764, and appoints a certified legal intern in the District Attorney's Office at $59,500.

A bond vote that is not county borrowing

Resolution 279.2026 approves, under a federal tax rule, a bond issued by the Cumberland County Municipal Authority for the benefit of Penn State Health. The resolution states it "shall not in any way pledge or obligate the credit or taxing power of the county." This is a routine approval that lets a health system borrow through a public authority; the county is neither borrowing the money nor guaranteeing it. It is separate from the up-to-$30 million reimbursement resolution the board passed August 27 for the regional youth detention center, which was the county's own borrowing step.

Budget items and contracts

Resolution 280.2026 is a small budget action: $19,583 moved between wage accounts in the Juvenile Probation Office to match a grant allocation, and $3,500 appropriated to repair a water service line a contractor damaged at Stonecliffe Park, with the cost expected to be reimbursed.

The contract listing, dated September 14, is mostly the routine machinery of county government. It includes an amendment worth up to $510,675 with the county Court of Common Pleas for guardian ad litem services, which provide court-appointed advocates for children in county child-welfare cases, and several per-day placement contracts for children in county care, among them a secure-detention rate of $767.54 a day at George Junior Republic. Smaller items cover an emerging-adults guide for the probation office (up to $15,000), a Berks Heim clinical-messaging system (up to $10,896), hardware and software from Samsara (up to $33,202), a Microsoft subscription (up to $3,980), and two no-cost vision-benefit agreements for county employees and public-safety staff.

The board also takes up a memorandum of understanding with the Pennsylvania Social Services Union over a county Caseworker III position, letters of agreement between Children and Youth Services and the state's physical-health managed-care organizations, two state grant filings for adult-probation treatment programs, and a letter of support for a renovation grant sought by the Boone Area Library.

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 a Commissioner Town Hall the night before, Wednesday, September 16, at 6:30 p.m. at the Mifflin Community Library, 6 Philadelphia Avenue, Shillington, where the commissioners answer questions from the public; no specific topic is posted. An Election Board meeting is set for 11 a.m. Thursday, after the commissioners adjourn, though that board meets only as needed. New to this? See how to speak at a commissioners meeting, and how Berks County government works for what the county runs versus the state and your township. A recap will follow once the county posts the meeting video or minutes.