DAUPHIN COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
COMMISSIONERS' WORKSHOP MEETING MINUTES
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2005 10:00 A.M.

MEMBERS PRESENT

Jeff Haste, Chairman
Dominic D. DiFrancesco, II, Vice Chairman
George P. Hartwick, III, Secretary

STAFF PRESENT

Chad Saylor, Chief Clerk/Chief of Staff; Bill Tully, Esq., Solicitor; Marie Rebuck, Controller; Bob Dick, Treasurer; Bruce Foreman, Esq., Asst. Solicitor; Chip Vance, Esq., Asst. Solicitor; Randy Baratucci, Purchasing Director; George Connor, Economic Development; Kay Sinner, Personnel; Carolyn Thompson, Esq., Court Administrator; Melanie McCaffrey, Solicitor's Office; Dan Robinson, Economic Development; Diane McNaughton, Press Secretary; Garry Esworthy, Risk Manager; Kacey Truax, Commissioners' Office; Jena Wolgemuth, Commissioners' Office; Julia E. Nace, Asst. Chief Clerk

GUESTS PRESENT

None

MINUTES

CALL TO ORDER

Mr. Haste, Chairman of the Board, called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m.

MOMENT OF SILENCE

Everyone observed a moment of silence.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

Everyone stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Mr. Haste: We have four sets of meeting minutes that we'll approve next week.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: We are at the point in time for public participation. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the Board? (There was none.)

SALARY BOARD MEETING

(The Salary Board Minutes are on file in the Commissioners' Office.)

PERSONNEL

Mr. DiFrancesco: Do we need to approve the hire?

Ms. Sinner: Yes, we will need to approve her hire today. Did you want me to go over some of the other items?

Mr. Hartwick: I'm fine.

Ms. Sinner: There are some vacancies that I'm requesting permission to fill. There is a vacancy in a District Justice Office requesting permission to fill. In the new hires, the RNAC Supervisor is number seven. The rest of the new hires would be approved next week.

Mr. Hartwick: Obviously, we are still supposed to be in the hiring freeze and waiting until an appropriate time to hire the non-essential, where we don't have to fill minimum staffing requirements like at Spring Creek and Children & Youth, etc. Relating to new hire number 17, as well as personnel changes #19 & 20, which give promotions in Domestic Relations and Schaffner, is there any explanation that we can provide?

Ms. Sinner: I can't provide an explanation. I was hoping they had checked with their oversight Commissioners.

Mr. Saylor: Carolyn seems ready to give an explanation.

Ms. Thompson: We are asking for the promotion of a Clerk I to a Clerk III in Domestic Relations. The person in the Clerk III position, Nancy Mateer, retired at the end of January. She was out on medical leave since sometime in September. She decided to retire. It is a crucial position to be filled. It is one of the Appeal Court Units. It is a very small unit for clerical people. All Clerk III's who cover the appeals, Contempt Court and Paternity Court, the three people have been covering the fourth persons position since last September. We do need to get that filled. We are going to keep the resultant Clerk I vacancy open until the preferred window by the Commissioners. The President Judge has approved us promoting this person. The Clerk III's also do the blood testing.

Mr. Hartwick: Since this was open since September, could we have tried to work that into the early year hiring freeze?

Ms. Thompson: If we had known Nancy was going to retire, we probably would have worked it in. But the fact that it has gone so long, if we don't do something, we're also looking at overtime situations because they can't continue to keep working at this level. As much as we can, we do want to cooperate with the windows.

Mr. Hartwick: Any idea with the Schaffner one, Nick?

Mr. Saylor: I note that one appears to be tied to a salary board action which eliminates one and creates a new position.

Ms. Sinner: I know a full-time aide resigned or retired. They reclassified that position into one position so this part-timer could become full-time.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I'll get you an explanation today from Dan so that by next week we know whether or not it should go forward or not.

Mr. Saylor: It is definitely an issue the Hiring Freeze Committee can review.

Mr. Hartwick: I think that is what I'll do, just refer those issues that I outlined including the District Justice Jennings, Domestic Relations and Schaffner to the Committee so they can come with a full report before the vote next week.

Mr. Haste: Do you want to comment on D. J. Jennings?

Ms. Thompson: The Jennings position has also been vacant since sometime late last year. The person left employment and we told Magisterial Judge Jennings that he would not get a prompt replacement and that it would be held open for a period of time. Again, the stress is starting to show in that office. He requested that it be filled. President Judge did authorize this. When I say, President Judge at this point, both of these were approved by President Judge Kleinfelter prior to the change in office.

Mr. Hartwick: Stress is starting to show by, lack of voice?

Mr. Haste: Is there anything else?

Ms. Sinner: No, I don't have anything else to point out. I have the overtime report and an overtime request from the Prison.

PURCHASE ORDERS

Mr. Baratucci: You should have all received your report yesterday. I'm happy to tell you that it is a clear report. There are no budget issues. They were all resolved before we were able to put together the report. Unless you have any questions, you can take the week to check it.

Mr. Hartwick: The Work Release Center, I always hear so much about the commissary fund and how much stacked up amount of money we have at Adult Probation from a number of different things including, they even have their own revenues generated from the Coke contract which is part of the commissary fund. Are we coming out of the general fund for these t-shirts and if we are, why couldn't we examine what is in the commissary fund before we look at the general fund for those expenditures? It seems like something that should fall in and maybe fit in, if we make the recommendation that they could pay for it out of their nice slush fund.

Mr. Baratucci: Carolyn may want to respond to this but my understanding is, that the Courts have complete control over what they use those funds for other than the amount that was given back to the County per a predetermined agreement. It is my understanding that they determine solely what they use it for. Carolyn, is that right? At least that is what I have been told on numerous occasions.

Mr. Hartwick: When you talk about t-shirts and stuff for people on work release, that seems like an appropriate use for commissary fund dollars.

Ms. Thompson: The former President Judge's position was that all expenses had to be run through the budget so we would maintain an accurate accounting of what it cost to run these facilities. The Courts do have control over the commissary fund and that was an agreement that was reached with the Board of Commissioners. They do provide the Board of Commissioners with an accounting each year. We have gotten significant things from the commissary account for replacing a washer and other materials like that. If this is an issue that you want to readdress, maybe you could have Nick take this up with Judge Lewis and see if they want to change any type of philosophy. For the time being, the Court's position is that it is run through the budget. It is part of the budget because it is a cost of running the operation.

Mr. Hartwick: I don't want to open up a can of worms. My thoughts are that we support a lot of other organizations out there, like giving contributions to Little Leagues and doing a lot of things with the commissary fund that I fear..

Ms. Thompson: These aren't personalized t-shirts.

Mr. Hartwick: I hear we are doing a lot of other things to support other organizations. Based on the County's budget situation you would figure you would want to try to look internally to have the least amount of impact on the general fund particularly when it talks about operating stuff and t-shirts for the facility before you would think about outside donations. I'm just trying to simply make an argument that maybe these from a priority standpoint should come before donations to the Little League. It would certainly be much better off for the bottom line of the general fund.

Ms. Thompson: All right.

Mr. Baratucci: I do want to point out, whoever pays for the t-shirts, you only see the totals here, but the t-shirts themselves, are $2.94 each and sweatshirts are $5.73 a piece. As Carolyn said, they are not a high quality level shirt. If you guys pay for them, you can determine that along with the Courts.

Mr. Hartwick: The mounting of prints for Fort Hunter, page 8, I don't understand what the request is. I see that it is not over the budget amount. It is probably something that is budgeted every year. Just for my own information, I wanted to know what it's for.

Mr. Baratucci: I don't know a lot of details on it other than the fact that they have this annual exhibit that they do. I'm sure like you said, since it is budgeted, I'm sure this is something that they put out for their exhibit on a yearly basis. It does appear $1,500 and this is $1,300 and looks like something they have done in previous years because it is right within the budget amount.

Mr. Hartwick: That's about all I have.

TRAINING PACKET

Mr. Haste: I don't think there is anything that we need to deal with on the Training Packet today.

DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS/GUESTS

1. Dan Robinson, Economic Development Director
   1. Intergovernmental Grant Application from Paxtang and Penbrook for the purchase of computer software and hardware to enroll in the Pennsylvania's Crime Network (CNET).

Mr. Robinson: I'm here to present our first Intergovernmental Grant of the year with Paxtang and Penbook. Both boroughs, which I believe you all received a copy of the submitted Intergovernmental Grant, for the consolidation of sharing of police records which will improve the delivery of police service to the respective communities. The two police departments identified the best method to facilitate common police record management system is to enroll in the Pennsylvania Crime Network of State Police Management which is administered through the Chief of Police Association and supported by the PA Commission on Crime and Delinquency. See that is a web based law enforcement record management system that encourages the controlling of sharing of information and allows the agencies to easily capture data from multiple sources. The Intergovernmental Grant would pay for the computer software and hardware that is required to run the system. Penbrook, as indicated on the grant, would contribute $5,200 towards this grant and Paxtang would contribute $11,900 for the total of $29,600. They are requesting the full amount as matching money of $12,500 out of the Intergovernmental Grant line item. We currently budgeted for year 2005, $50,000. So this would be one of potentially more to come.

Mr. Hartwick: I'm fully in support of this grant request. Are they moving off of Metro into this system?

Mr. Robinson: From my knowledge of Paxtang they were on Metro, so I'm not sure if this will couple with that or it will be separate. I can find that out.

Mr. Haste: I think one complements the other right now but the goal at some point in time, there probably would not be a need for Metro if Metro joins CNET. CNET is actually more state-wide than Metro is.

Mr. Hartwick: Knowing what I do know about Metro and the headaches, I cannot wait until municipalities move away from Metro.

Mr. Haste: I think it is a move that right now complements Metro but I think the ultimate goal is that some point in time, it would replace that.

Mr. Robinson: I did relay to both boroughs that this would be a one time grant. It wouldn't be something that we would we willing to fund on a yearly basis but I think bringing them together is the purpose of these grants.

Mr. Hartwick: If this works successfully and you are able to transition, this is an appropriate use for these funds and maybe other municipalities who also want to make that transition. You might want to let them know.

Mr. Haste: I think most other municipalities have. I know Susquehanna has..

Mr. Hartwick: Steelton-Highspire has not and they probably should.

Mr. Haste: Ed and Tom Guenther may know more. I know they have been active in this for some time.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Dan, this grant program, do we normally get more requests than there is money for this particular one?

Mr. Robinson: Last year, we had not maxed out on the line item. I think we had four different grants which could potentially add up to $50,000. Some of them came in less than the maximum of $12,500 matching. So far, we are into March and we've had one request.

Mr. Haste: Thank you.

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

Mr. Haste: Item A, we need to take a vote on. This would be the agreement that is needed so that we could begin to generate revenue from the GIS information. I do know there is a customer already waiting for the information.

Mr. Saylor: I have an additional item. We also need to vote on item #7 from the Personnel packet, the RNAC position.

1. Geographic Information System (GIS) Agreement between Dauphin County Information Technology and Arro Consulting, Inc. (***A VOTE IS REQUESTED 3/02/05)
2. Recommend Matthew A. Tunnell to the South Central Workforce Investment Board. (Term will expire September 30, 2007

Mr. Haste: Is there a motion to approve Item A?

It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick to approve a Geographic Information System (GIS) Agreement between Dauphin County Information Technology and Arro Consulting, Inc.; motion carries.

Mr. Haste: Is there a motion to approve Item #7 from the Personnel Packet?

It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick that the Board approve the hiring of a full-time RNAC Supervisor, start date March 3, 2005; motion carries.

SOLICITOR'S REPORT

Mr. Haste: Are there any questions for the Solicitor?

Mr. Hartwick: I thought we already did the HSDF Agreement with the Greater Harrisburg Foundation? Did they ask for another $5,000 or is that the original $5,000 request that they had made from the County? Could you get back to us after the meeting?

Mr. Saylor: I recall we indicated the willingness to do it. I don't think we ever authorized an agreement but I will double check it.

REPORT FROM CHIEF CLERK/CHIEF OF STAFF - CHAD SAYLOR

Mr. Saylor: Commissioners, I have some audit related items. I wanted to note that we have received copies of the audits for 2003 for the County tax collectors and for the district justice offices. Both were performed by Zelenkofske Axelrod. Obviously, this will be the final that we have done outside of the County on the tax collectors.

On that note, the audit committee met earlier this week, in fact it was yesterday, and we reviewed a number of items. One thing that we reviewed was going out and requesting proposals for some of the audit services. As you know, we have already authorized ZA to do the general audit. There are some additional audits that are required, one is indirect cost and one is that we need to continue to audit the district justice offices as required by state law. It was the recommendation of the Audit Committee to recommend to you that we do not go out to RFP on the indirect cost but to send out an RFP on the district justice audits. That is slightly larger, it is about in the neighborhood of $30,000-$40,000 for that audit. Indirect cost is a much smaller audit. The company that currently does it which is..

Mrs. Rebuck: Maximus.

Mr. Saylor: They apparently have been doing it for many, many years and have been doing an excellent job. Their price has gone up not a lot. It has been pretty much the same for the years that they have been doing it. It is a small audit about $13,000 and particularly with the strong sentiment of the Controller's Office, that we continue to use them at this stage at least for another year to see where we go. That is the recommendation of the Audit Committee. We ask for your input in terms of how we proceed. I guess the question is, do you accept the recommendation of the Audit Committee?

Mr. Haste: I support the recommendation.

Mr. Saylor: Do you have any other questions?

Mr. Hartwick: Have you found a significant amount of shortcomings in either one of the two audits?

Mr. Saylor: I can tell you the audit for the district justices is not that detailed. Each district justice has their own audit. The indirect cost, perhaps Marie or someone could speak more towards that. That is a very detailed audit. It looks like a telephone book. It's a very detailed audit.

Mrs. Rebuck: The indirect cost is more or less an accumulation of statistics from the different departments. For our Human Services agencies, they use that information. It does get scrutinized through the Department of Welfare and those agencies. We've never heard anything back on any of those agencies that our indirect audit is wrong in all these years.

We are open to maybe opening it up at some point but I think the Controller's concern at this point is because of the volume that is involved, we've had them for many years and in 15-17 years the audit has only gone up $1,000 in that amount of time. It's a lot of work that is involved. Our concern is, we are going to have to get a specialty company to provide, if we are going out on bid, we are going to have to make sure it is somebody that does just indirect cost. Our concern for the Controller's Office, is a new person coming in, the staff time that would be required of our department to help these individuals if we do go with a new company. Quite frankly, we just don't have the extra time.

Mr. Hartwick: Either I misspoke when I asked the question. My question is not who we have in that position. My question is, as a result of the audit with the findings for indirect cost and the district justice offices, have we found any significant findings that we need to be aware of?

Mrs. Rebuck: Really the indirect cost is not really considered an audit.

Mr. Haste: It establishes the indirect cost that we use in our budgeting process.

Mrs. Rebuck: Right.

Mr. Hartwick: Again, with the district justices offices, are there major issues?

Mr. Saylor: There really wasn't. I will say with the general audit though, there were numerous recommendations through the management letter and the Audit Committee spent a good bit of time going over each one and reviewing the reply. I guess they get sent out to each of the department heads that were identified. They give replies back and we've reviewed those replies to see what kind of steps need to be taken. There were several from Spring Creek and Spring Creek gave a very detailed response to all of the questions that were raised. I think we are going to have a follow-up meeting with the folks at Spring Creek just to fully understand what they were. We are doing that with the general audit and having a good bit of success with that. It is somewhat detailed and I can provide you with a copy of a memo that Gary did to kind of summarize everything we looked at.

Mr. Hartwick: Was there any district justice office that had any significant issues?

Mr. Saylor: Not that we saw from the audit. I don't remember seeing any, do you?

Mrs. Rebuck: No.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Question with the recurring issues at the district justice offices. How do those get addressed? When you have issues that pop up, for instance, I know that one of the old time favorites was, certain judges were using signature stamps and there was constantly a recommendation in their audits where they shouldn't use a signature stamp. Sometimes they responded and sometimes they did not. What is the procedure when, let's say there are things that are identified in terms of internal controls over the money, if things become reoccurring audit after audit and not being addressed, is there anything that we do to sort of pressure those offices in changing their accounting standards or do we leave that up to the judge and state officials?

Mrs. Rebuck: They are elected officials and we only have so much control over them. We can only recommend year, after year, after year.

Mr. DiFrancesco: So really there is not too much additionally that we've done.

Mr. Haste: I think our remedy would be if we saw that and they did not correct it, we need to talk to the Judicial Inquiry Review Board.

Mr. Tully: If I could add, when it comes to the district justices, with the AOPC automated system the old problems that we used to have, have been pretty much rectified. Those audits are also shared with the AOPC that looks to compliance with the programs that are designed to eliminate those problems as well. Essentially, what is being a practice where each district justice kind of does things their own way. There is a state-wide homogeneous way of doing that. The AOPC automatically addresses those issues, not only individually but when they find something that collectively is a problem, they kind of revamp it. It's taken a lot of pressure off of us. I'm not sure whether this should still be a County function or not. It takes a while for the General Assembly to catch up but this is one where it would probably make more sense if this was done under a state contract through the AOPC to do the audits and then work it comprehensively as opposed to the counties doing it. Right now it is the old law dealing with the new reality. So there really isn't a lot of responsibility on this Board of Commissioners.

Mr. Saylor: I do have one other item. That is to note for the record, that Friday marks a very important date for the County of Dauphin. March 4, 1785, was the establishment of Dauphin County. So we are marking this week as the 220th Anniversary of the establishment of Dauphin County.

Mr. Haste: Are there any other comments from the Board?

Mr. DiFrancesco: I have a question on Item #12 on the Solicitor's Report. Chad, can you check to see how those contracts are assigned? Do we have one vendor that does all our offices?

Mr. Haste: No.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Do the judges themselves make those decisions and shouldn't the County be making those decisions?

Mr. Haste: What traditionally happens, I guess this gets between the Board and Courts, but that has been one of the perks that has been allowed to the district justices. They decide who is going to clean their office as long as service that is provided and the amount falls in range with the others, it has always been given as their perk.

Mr. Tully: That perk has been okayed by the President Judge. It has actually been one of those things under the judiciary as opposed.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Not to make it an issue, but the one thing is that we are the landlord and they are the tenant. It is important that, granted this is not a matter of high importance, but the bottom line is, it is clearly our jurisdiction and not the courts.

Mr. Tully: The questions were raised on numerous occasions and what it apparently came down to remember that situation in the City where the County got tagged for things that were done by elected district justices or appointed district justices...

Mr. Haste: I remember that very well.

Mr. Tully: I guess there was that desire to say, well if it is the courts..it was a way of insulating, if we don't really have control of the day to day operations, we didn't want to necessarily do things that made it look like we had more control than we did. This has been revisited. It is a delicate situation. I understand exactly where you are coming from.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I'm more concerned from a philosophical basis that we just don't make what has become a gray area more gray. I think it is very important that we clarify landlord-tenant relations.

Mr. Tully: I think we have a carefully selected shade of gray that we've been operating under.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I don't want to disrupt that shade of gray.

Mr. Tully: If it is something that is going to be addressed, it should probably be in conjunction with the President Judge.

Mr. Haste: Are there any more comments or questions?

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the Board? (There was none.)

ADJOURNMENT

There being no further business for the Board, it was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. DiFrancesco to adjourn the meeting.