Lehigh County Authority with a bid of $220 million. The LCA is a public water and wastewater utility governed by a nine-member board of directors appointed by the county, whose ratemaking practices are governed by the Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Act. The lease-concession provided the city an upfront payment of $211 million, with annual payments of $500,000. The payments helped the city reduce its unfunded pension liability by $150 million, eliminate $30 million in water and sewer debt and reduce its annual Municipal pension obligation from $28 million to $6 million in a single year. As a result, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services lifted Allentown’s bond rating by three notches from BBB+ to A+. The rating agency noted that the dramatic one time rate increase was due to city’s "significantly improved budget flexibility" as a result of its water and sewer system lease-concession agreement. The lease concession and bonds sold to finance development in the Neighborhood Improvement Zone collectively won Allentown recognition from The Bond Buyer as its "Deal of the Year", for the Northeast Region in 2013. FBI probe and conviction In 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began "interception of electronic and wire communications" in Allentown City Hall. On July 2, 2015 the FBI raided Allentown City Hall and Mayor Ed Pawlowski's home as part of a more-than-two-year investigation into Allentown's contracting practices. Several days later, Mike Fleck, campaign manager for Pawlowski and former Reading Mayor Vaughn Spencer, abruptly moved from his Allentown home. News reports at the time claimed that Fleck was secretly recording Pawlowski and Spencer for the FBI. Subsequently, two individuals pleaded guilty on bribery charges related to the investigation. Court documents related to one of the cases implicated an unnamed individual ("Public Official No. 3") who matches the description of Mayor Pawlowski. The defendant in the other case was Reading City Council President Francisco Acosta, and documents in that case implicated unnamed individual ("Public Official No. 1") matching the description of Reading's Mayor Spencer. Acosta received a two-year prison sentence. In November 2015, former Allentown assistant solicitor Dale Wiles pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Charging documents stated that Wiles was working under the direction of Public Official No. 3 when he steered a contract, initially scored in favor of another vendor, to a donor of the official. Eron Lloyd, a special assistant to Spencer, pleaded guilty to