Berks County OKs $500K Escrow for 600 Penn Tower

The Berks County Board of Commissioners met Thursday, September 3, 2026, and approved a mid-year budget package that sets aside $500,000 toward buying the office tower at 600 Penn Street and reshuffles about $4.5 million to cover child-welfare and juvenile-probation costs. The board approved its agenda as a single block, the way it runs every meeting, so every resolution on it passed together.

$500,000 toward the 600 Penn tower

Resolution 267.2026 authorized a batch of 2026 budget changes. 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 earlier steps did not move any money. Berks signed a $7.235 million letter of intent this summer to buy the former Wells Fargo building 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. The background is in our report on the 600 Penn Street purchase and our Aug. 27 recap. This $500,000 is the first the county has set aside to put toward the deal, a deposit that holds it rather than the full price, and the sale still has to clear 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 runs 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 match how the money is being spent. The largest transfers land in "payments to institutions" lines, the accounts that pay for foster care and residential placements for children in county care. A 2026 second-quarter fiscal update from the budget office opened the meeting and set the context.

Two smaller appropriations came out of the general-fund balance: $53,010 to buy a Coroner's Office vehicle that had been slated for other funding, and $14,145 to install a galvanized chain-link stairwell enclosure at the county's Downtown Campus. A separate $967 line covers higher-than-expected Sheriff's Office costs from a busy year of tax sales, paid from tax-sale revenue rather than the general fund.

Opioid money, the Berks Heim, and 2027 town halls

Resolution 273.2026 authorized 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 passed a run of housekeeping resolutions: a patient-trust bond increase for the Berks Heim nursing home, the 2027 schedule of commissioners' town-hall meetings at eight libraries around the county, an accident-insurance renewal for county volunteers through CCAP, a state food-bank funding report for Helping Harvest, and an agreement to send library staff into BCIU Head Start preschools for story times.

The contract list, dated August 31, carried 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 April 9 authorization.
• Up to $42,871 to replace meter-setting valves and piping on the county prison's water main.
• A settlement in which the county collects $873.84 from a trucking company and driver to cover hazardous-material cleanup after an accident.
• A $5,000 audit of the county Youth Center by PREA Solutions, updated per-day rates on several foster-care and youth-placement contracts, and a vendor name change on one of the county's claims-administration contracts.

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 second-quarter fiscal update, the agenda items read, the agenda approved, reports from the Treasurer and Controller, commissioners' comments, and a public-comment period. The county had not posted written minutes of the September 3 meeting at publication, and we will update this recap if they show any change.

The next commissioners' board meeting is Thursday, September 10, 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.