Despite receiving millions of dollars in natural gas drilling impact fees, Greene County is struggling to balance its budget and raising property taxes for the first time in more than a decade, Spotlight PA reports, begging questions about the financial lifeline offered by Pennsylvania's slowing fossil fuel industry. 

The initial windfall seemed to buy Greene County time to figure out how to survive financially as its cornerstone industry, coal mining, all but vanished. The county regularly used impact fee shares to shore up budgets that might otherwise have collapsed. Critics say the money was also used for wasteful and shortsighted projects.

But as drilling slows, impact fee payments will as well, and without major changes, officials warn Greene County could go broke by 2023.

THE CONTEXT: In 2012, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed Act 13 into law, overhauling the state’s oil and gas law and providing municipalities revenue from fees imposed on wells drilled within their borders. 

In the first year of the program, Greene County was compensated $3 million in impact fees, while an influx of transient oil and gas workers provided a much-need boost to the local economy. 

As the gas industry started to slow, however, the number of workers from out of town dropped, along with the number of wells being drilled and overall natural gas prices — a key in the formula used to determine impact fee shares. 

“We tried every other opportunity we could, slashing all those expenses,” Greene County Commissioner Mike Belding said. “We just couldn’t get there. So we made the hard decision to increase taxes.”

YEAS HAVE IT: The U.S. Senate narrowly passed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill over the weekend with $1,400 stimulus check and extended unemployment benefit provisions still intact. Pennsylvania's two senators were split along party lines. And while a proposed minimum-wage hike did not survive the negotiations, Pennsylvania progressives vow the "fight for $15" will continue, The Inquirer reports. 

MASK ON: Some statewide COVID-19 rules have already been lifted or eased, but Pennsylvania's mask mandate isn't going anywhere yet, according to the York Daily Record. The paper reports Gov. Tom Wolf has no plans to follow the lead of conservative counterparts who have already repealed mask rules despite federal warnings to the contrary. LancasterOnline says Wolf isn't planning to tighten rules for bars and restaurants this St. Patrick's Day either. 

LONGSHOT: Gov. Tom Wolf wants to invest $3 billion in revenue from a proposed severance tax on natural gas drilling to boost workforce development and Pennsylvania's pandemic-ravaged economy over the next 10 years. There is one big hitch: While Wolf's perennial severance tax proposals have gained public support, necessary legislative backing remains much harder to come by, as WHYY reports.

IN MEMORIAM: David Newhouse, who led The Patriot-News and PennLive to a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Jerry Sandusky scandal 10 years ago, died Thursday from complications of leukemia. He was 65. A member of a powerful New York publishing family, Newhouse presided over the Patriot-News at a time of profound change for the industry and lasting accolades for the outlet, PennLive reports. 

'ROUGH TREATMENT': Last week's early morning raids at the homes of embattled Philly labor leader Johnny “Doc” Dougherty and his nephew are raising familiar questions about law enforcement tactics and the proportional use of force, Billy Penn reports. “[Dougherty's nephew], his wife and their two terrified young children were home and up,” a Local 98 union rep told the outlet. “The kids had automatic weapons pointed at them.”