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<p>It&#8217;s an old gimmick, it&#8217;s frustrating for any taxpayer to see, and it&#8217;s all too often an only option.</p><p>It&#8217;s the government practice of borrowing more money to fill a financial hole.</p><p>Wilkes-Barre City is the latest to do it, floating <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/670013/wilkes-barre-bond-deal-estimated-at-71-million" target="_blank">$41.3 million in bonds </a>intended to put the city on firm financial footing. Of course, all that money comes with interest payments, so the $41.3 million will actually cost $71 million by the time it&#8217;s paid off in 20 years.</p><p>It is as counterintuitive as it is common. From the smallest borough to school districts to state and federal governments, long-term borrowing to cover short-term problems is the norm.</p><p>The state legislature is still grappling with how to fund a $32 billion 2017-18 budget with a $2 billion hole in it, and the state senate recently passed a bill that would borrow $1.3 billion against the commonwealth&#8217;s annual share of a multi-year settlement with tobacco companies.</p><p>Hanover Area School District recently floated $10 million in bonds, with $1 million in new borrowing tacked on to what was otherwise a refinancing of existing debt.</p><p>In fairness, that transaction only extended the payments of the existing debt by one year, so it really does sound like they saved money through better loan terms rather than &#8220;saving&#8221; by stretching out the payments.</p><p>That&#8217;s what Wilkes-Barre is doing. The bond &#8212; debated since January &#8212; is designed primarily to reduce the city&#8217;s annual debt payments, from $7.5 million to $5.5 million. Some of the money &#8212; about $4.4 million &#8212; will go toward repairing a flood-protection wall along Solomon Creek.</p><p>It is like taking out a 30-year mortgage rather than a 15-year mortgage. The price of the house is the same, and you actually spend more overall on the longer loan, but you pay less each year.</p><p>Mayor Tony George has pushed for this refinancing by insisting that, without it, city finances would be in &#8220;dire straits,&#8221; and he&#8217;s probably right. Increasing annual debt payments by $2 million would leave limited money available for daily operations in a city with a budget of $47.1 million.</p><p>Consider the March snow storm: Wilkes-Barre spent about <a href="https://www.timesleader.com/news/667701/wilkes-barres-budget-balance-decreases-as-snow-cleanup-expenses-paid" target="_blank">$1 million</a> in five days cleaning up that blizzard.</p><p>It&#8217;s emergencies like that, and the collapse of part of a wall in Solomon Creek, that can force this sort of solution. Local governments plot out balanced annual budgets then get whacked with emergencies that cost $1 million here and $4 million there.</p><p>And if a government squirrels away some emergency funds, taxpayers understandably grumble that they didn&#8217;t pay that money so it could sit in a bank.</p><p>But in the end, floating 20-year bonds to save money is borrowing from Peter to pay Paul &#8212; or more exactly, it&#8217;s borrowing from future taxpayers to pay bills today.</p><p>By its very nature, it has to be a one-time thing, and it has to be connected to systemic changes in government operations that address whatever underlying problems caused it.</p><p>City Council agreed to borrow the money, now they need to fix the problems.</p><style>
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Our view: Wilkes Barre City borrowing only fixes half the problem