Berks County sets aside $500K for 600 Penn purchase

The Berks County Board of Commissioners meets Thursday, September 3, 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. After two weeks of big-ticket votes, this agenda is mostly mid-year money-moving. The item most residents will recognize: the county sets aside $500,000 to put toward buying the former Wells Fargo tower at 600 Penn Street.

$500,000 toward the 600 Penn tower

Resolution 267.2026 authorizes a batch of 2026 budget changes, and one line inside it appropriates $500,000 from the county's general-fund balance "to provide the required escrow deposit for the purchase of 600 Penn." An escrow deposit is money a buyer puts up, held by a neutral third party, to secure a deal while the sale is finalized.

The steps before this one did not move any money. Berks signed a $7.235 million letter of intent this summer to buy the tower as swing space while the aging courthouse is repaired, and the board voted August 27 to authorize an agreement of sale, subject to the county solicitor's review. We covered those in our report on the 600 Penn Street purchase and our Aug. 27 recap. The $500,000 is a deposit that holds the deal, not the full price, and the sale is still subject to the solicitor's review.

A $4.5 million mid-year shift for child and youth costs

The rest of Resolution 267.2026 moves $4,538,778 between accounts and appropriates another $1,462,530, per a listing dated August 28. Almost all of it flows through two departments: Children and Youth Services, the county's child-welfare agency, and the Juvenile Probation Office.

The county's own explanation says it is moving the money "based on mid-year spending and projected needs through year-end" and reallocating state child-welfare funding, known as Act 148 dollars, and the county's required match between the two departments to line up with how the money is being spent. The bulk of the transfers land in "payments to institutions" lines, the accounts that pay for foster care and residential placements for children in county care. A separate presentation on the agenda, a 2026 second-quarter fiscal update from the budget office, sets the context.

Two other appropriations stand out. One pulls $53,010 from fund balance to buy a Coroner's Office vehicle that had been slated for other funding. Another sets aside $14,145 to install a galvanized chain-link stairwell enclosure at the county's Downtown Campus, and a small transfer covers higher-than-expected Sheriff's Office costs from a busy year of tax sales.

Opioid-settlement money and the rest

Resolution 273.2026 authorizes the county's 2026 Certification of Use of Funds form for the national opioid settlement, the yearly filing the county submits to account for how it spent its share of the money drug companies agreed to pay states and counties.

The board also takes up a set of housekeeping resolutions: a bond increase for the Berks Heim nursing home's patient-trust account, the 2027 schedule of commissioners' town-hall meetings at libraries around the county, an insurance renewal for county volunteers, a state food-bank funding report for Helping Harvest, and an agreement to send library staff to Head Start preschools for story times.

The contract agenda, dated August 31, carries mostly routine items, with a few worth noting:

• Up to $106,000 in county money to reimburse the City of Reading for lighting improvements the city made at county parkland, including Stonecliffe Park and the Union Canal Trail. This replaces an earlier April authorization.
• Up to $42,871 to replace water-main valves and piping for the county prison.
• A settlement in which the county collects $873.84 from a trucking company and a driver to cover hazardous-material cleanup after a February 2025 accident.
• Updated per-day rates on several foster-care and youth-placement contracts, a $5,000 audit of the county Youth Center, and a name change on the county's workers'-compensation claims administrator.

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 whole comment period is capped at 30 minutes, with in-person speakers first.

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.