The controversy is over unpaid bond payments, payless paydays, unpaid gasoline bills that could idle police cars and fire and garbage trucks and closed swimming pools, but at the bottom line lies a simple fact.
Financially distressed Scranton still desperately needs a new financial recovery plan.
Mayor Chris Doherty says it over and over.
The Pennsylvania Economy League, which has coordinated the city's everlasting financial recovery for more than 20 years, knows it and pushes the mayor and the city council to adopt one.
So does the state Department of Community and Economic Development, which appointed PEL as financial recovery coordinator 20 years ago.
Banks demand a recovery plan and won't lend the city badly needed and budgeted money, according to city officials.
Even the council knows a plan is required, having engaged in what Council President Janet Evans said was five months of fruitless negotiations that she says Mr. Doherty undermined with a recovery plan that calls for massive property tax increases.
The council blames the mayor for the lack of a workable plan. The mayor blames the council for failing to come up with an alternative.
Everyone knows the city needs a recovery plan and still it does not have one after months of negotiations.
"The importance of the recovery plan is it is a ⦠a plan to move forward in the next three years," said Gerald Cross, executive director of the Pennsylvania Economy League Central Division in Wilkes-Barre, the city's recovery coordinator.
Whatever the plan finally is, it will certainly involve painful decisions.
"If you're in distress, the way out probably involves something painful. Otherwise, it would be easy," Mr. Cross said.
Mr. Doherty has proposed a recovery plan, a painful one.
It proposes 78 percent higher property taxes over the next three years, $22 in garbage collection fee increases over two years, a 1 percent commuter wage tax, an amusement tax and higher license and permit fees plus selling the city's stormwater collection system and other measures.
With its 2-2 tie vote Thursday on introducing the mayor's recovery plan, the council officially rejected the plan. Mrs. Evans was absent because of the death of her mother, but she roundly criticized it last month and said she would vote against it.
Mr. Doherty contends the council must work to adopt a recovery plan partly because the 2012 budget it produced called for borrowing millions of dollars and banks won't lend the city the money without a workable plan.
Without the borrowing to fund the rest of this year's budget, city employees face payless paydays as early as June 22 and the city might eventually run out of money to pay overdue bills such as a $208,000 gasoline bill. Dunmore Oil Co. has threatened to cut the city off if it does not arrange to make payments on the gasoline bill and Mr. Doherty said his administration is working on that. The city is already planning to open only one of its swimming pools this summer.
The city is facing a cash crunch because money it normally would have had was spent paying back a tax anticipation note.
"They decided to borrow. This is their budget. I offered a 29 percent (property) tax increase. If they did that, we wouldn't have this problem today," Mr. Doherty said. "The banks aren't fooling around here."
Mr. Doherty said hopes were raised little Thursday when the council reversed itself and voted to introduce a money transfer to help the Scranton Parking Authority make an overdue almost $1.2 million bond payment. For one thing, the council only introduced the measure, and won't vote on final approval until next Thursday.
"The council reversing their position on the (bond) payment is one small issue," Mr. Doherty said. "The real issue is we're running out of money because they voted not to introduce my recovery plan. But they haven't come up with their own plan and that's where we need to get the (borrowed money) that they put in their budget."
Without the recovery plan, banks will not feel confident to lend the city money to balance this year's budget because they will not believe the money will be there in future years to repay loans or bonds," Mr. Doherty said.
"And the state has said to me, 'We will go with you to the banks and help you out and say we approve this plan.'" Mr. Doherty said.
State Department of Community Development Secretary C. Alan Walker invited the mayor and council members to attend a session overseen by an independent mediator to try to come to some agreement on a recovery plan. The mayor is willing, but no one from the council has committed with Councilman Jack Loscombe flatly ruling himself out during the council meeting Thursday.
Simply getting a hold of council members proved difficult again Friday, Mr. Doherty and Mr. McGowan said.
They said they called every council member but Mrs. Evans - because she was preparing for her mother's funeral - and only Councilman Bob McGoff called back. Mr. McGoff is Mr. Doherty's lone council ally.
Mr. McGowan said he emailed banks Friday to gauge interest in providing financing, but did not hear from any. He believes they are waiting for the council's final vote on the bond money before deciding whether to get involved in loaning the city money, he said.
"The whole thing is you don't like my plan, what's your plan?" Mr. Doherty said. "They've had it for three weeks. And they knew everything about it because we discussed it with them. Myself and Ryan met with Mr. Joyce and Mrs. Evans. So nothing's new here ⦠All along I told her we're going to have dramatic tax increases because, 'If we want to get the (loan) money that you put in the budget, this is what the banks require.' They knew it, it's simple, it's just numbers, it's not philosophy."
Mr. Doherty said he might take legal action if the council does not act.
"Some way, it'll have to come to court because you can't just not do something," he said. "We're getting close to where there is no money and people should understand that."
Councilman Pat Rogan, the only council member to speak to a reporter Friday, said the two sides must meet, but said he knows little about when that will happen because he had not spoken to council members since Thursday night.
Mr. Rogan did not rule out going to Harrisburg if asked, but said Mr. Joyce, as council finance chairman, is a more appropriate choice. He said recovery plan talks are likelier to heat up after the council votes on the bond payment again Thursday.
Efforts to reach Mr. Joyce and Mr. Loscombe were unsuccessful.
Steve Kratz, a spokesman for the Department of Community and Economic Development, said there is little the state can do to force the sides to come up with a plan. Sanctions, which would cut off state money, are an option, but do not help when the problem is having enough cash, he said.
The onus to act is on the council, he said.
"The offering of a third-party mediator was an attempt to get both parties to sit down and air out their issues to come to an agreement on a plan because a recovery plan is what they need to move forward," Mr. Kratz said. "If they (the council) didn't like the coordinator's plan (PEL's plan) and the mayor's plan, ask them if they have a plan. What's their plan? They face serious issues, and at the end of the day, they need to take action to make sure that they can meet payroll and continue to provide vital and necessary services to the citizens of Scranton."
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com