{"id":142514,"date":"2025-05-14T22:17:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T02:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=142514"},"modified":"2025-05-14T22:17:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T02:17:45","slug":"bill-to-improve-oversight-of-allentown-niz-passes-senate-unanimously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=142514","title":{"rendered":"Bill to Improve Oversight of Allentown NIZ Passes Senate Unanimously"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HARRISBURG \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/senatorcoleman.com\/\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/senatorcoleman.com\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1747355599280000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0T0cc_AOBjyJUqcqQKXIRM\">Sen. Jarrett Coleman (R-16)<\/a>\u00a0announced today that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.palegis.us\/legislation\/bills\/2025\/sb0367\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.palegis.us\/legislation\/bills\/2025\/sb0367&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1747355599280000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0p1zItifC-4Jm_zkFpyile\">Senate Bill 367<\/a>\u00a0passed unanimously out of the state Senate and now moves to the state House of Representatives for consideration.<\/p>\n<p>With Coleman as prime sponsor and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pasenatormiller.com\/\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/pasenatormiller.com\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1747355599280000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1ivNEopzJuhwipXZ_i4dB4\">Sen. Nick Miller (D-14)<\/a>\u00a0as co-sponsor, Senate Bill 367 would enable the statutorily required audits of local tax transfers in the Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone (NIZ). Senate Bill 367 specifically authorizes the independent auditor for the NIZ contracting authority (the Allentown NIZ Development Authority, or ANIZDA) access to a qualified NIZ business\u2019s state and local tax information to conduct these audits.<\/p>\n<p>The bill also would make changes to the ANIZDA board, on which more than half the members continue to serve expired terms, a concern raised by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee that was charged with reviewing the NIZ program last year. Senate Bill 367 would establish a new board and process for selecting members: three appointed by the mayor, one by each of the three state representatives representing Allentown, and one by each of the two state senators, with a third selected by the senators jointly. The members will have staggered but fixed terms, can\u2019t be members of the General Assembly or state employees and must abide by state ethics requirements for filing financial interest statements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince taking office two and a half years ago, I\u2019ve been fighting for more transparency and accountability from the NIZ, and I think real progress that serves the public interest is being made. I appreciate that my Democratic colleague, Sen. Miller, shares this goal, and I am hopeful our bipartisan approach will succeed in getting this bill to the governor,\u201d Coleman said.<\/p>\n<p>Miller added, \u201cThis bill is a positive step toward improving transparency and strengthening oversight of the NIZ. Giving independent auditors the tools they need will help ensure the program continues to serve the public interest effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Information provided to TVL by:<br \/>\nSenate Republican Communications Office<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HARRISBURG \u2013\u00a0Sen. Jarrett Coleman (R-16)\u00a0announced today that\u00a0Senate Bill 367\u00a0passed unanimously out of the state Senate and now moves to the state House of Representatives for consideration. With Coleman as prime &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=142514\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bill to Improve Oversight of Allentown NIZ Passes Senate Unanimously<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/coleman.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/142515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}