COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WORKSHOP MEETING
NOVEMBER 23, 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; Marie Rebuck, Controller; Robert Dick, Treasurer; William Tully, Esq., Solicitor; Steve Chiavetta, Director of Registration and Elections; Sharon Way, Personnel; Steve Suknaic, Director of Juvenile Probation; Jeff Patton, Juvenile Probation; Elke Moyer, Human Services; Kim Robison, Director of Domestic Relations; Heidi Doyle, Domestic Relations; Gary Serhan, Deputy Controller; Garry Esworthy, Risk Manager; Greg Schneider, Budget & Finance Office; Sheila Britt, Domestic Relations; Jim Zugay, Recorder of Deeds; Kay Sinner, Personnel; Dave Schreiber, Personnel; Bob Hawley, Court Administrator's Office; Diane McNaughton, Commissioners' Office; Mike Yohe, Director of Budget & Finance; Edgar Cohen, Director of Facilities Maintenance; Guy Beneventano, Esq., Solicitor's Office; Donna Price, Controller's Office; Deb Lisi, Controller's Office; Jena Wolgemuth, Commissioners' Office; Lena Martinez, Commissioners' Office; and Richie Martz, Commissioners' Office

GUESTS PRESENT

Carol Cocheres, Lou Verdelli, and Jack Sherzer

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 Workshop Meeting Minutes that will be considered for approval at next week's Legislative Meeting.

ELECTION BOARD

(An Election Board Meeting was held. Minutes of this meeting are filed in the Commissioners' Office.)

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

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

DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS/GUESTS

1. Lou Verdelli of PFM
   1. Ordinance #5-2005 relating to Dauphin County General Obligation Bonds, Series D of 2005

Mr. Verdelli: Also joining me is Carol Cocheres, Bond Counsel from Eckert Seamans. I have two good pieces of news to report to you. You know that we are refinancing the Series E of 2000 Bonds. They are approaching their call date. It is a transaction that we couldn't have done any sooner than this. We have been working on that refunding. There are two pieces of information. The credit rating report is on Pages 1, 2, and 3 of the document with the blue cover. The other good news is that Standard and Poors has reaffirmed the County's AA rating and has maintained the outlook at stable. You may recall that stable outlook was an upgrade earlier this year. In 2005, they had changed that where it had been previously a negative outlook. They maintained the stable outlook and commented on the favorable projections for general fund reserve levels in 2004 and 2005. I won't review the rest of that, but pretty much all seem to be positive things that they commented on.

Just to show you the refinancing and how we are generating a net savings to the County of $180,000 through this transaction. Page 5 has your Series E of 2000 Bonds. The interest on those Bonds, 4.75, 4.70 and 4.8 are going to go to today's much lower rates, which are shown on Page 7. Rates ranging from 3.25% to 3.63%, so from going from those 4% rates to this under 3.5% rate, column 9 shows your net savings of $179,000 that is after all issuance costs. That is a true savings to the County. You can see how that is reflected in lower debt service payments projected for 2006, 2007 and some of those savings float down into 2008. The only other thing I would mention is on Page 7 is this percent of savings when you divide that by how many bonds you are refunding. It is a very efficient transaction to produce this level of savings from a $5 million refunding. Page 8 shows you the breakdown of the sources and uses of the funds. In the middle of Page 8 the yield of the issue, the rate that you are borrowing this new money at 3.65% is your new refinancing rate. Page 9 shows a comparison of how your bonds ended up with these interest rates versus another deal that was in the market yesterday. We are significantly better than their interest rates. Overall, the entire financing team did a good job in getting all of this together and your administration did a good job in getting us the information we needed to turn this around pretty quickly to take advantage of a slight drop that we had over the last two weeks in interest rates. I would be happy to answer any questions.

Mr. Haste: Carol.

Ms. Cocheres: In front of you is the Ordinance, which actually implements the refunding and authorizing the issuance of the Series D of 2005 Bonds in the amount of $5,315,000 and also authorizes the acceptance of a Bond Purchase Proposal from Parker Hunter, a division of Janney Montgomery Scott. The other major item is it authorizes the purchase of bond insurance from Financial Security Assurance. That is a quick summary of the implementing Ordinance. If you have any questions, I would be happy to respond.

Mr. Haste: Did we need to purchase insurance?

Mr. Verdelli: That is a good question. We talked to the underwriting desk, Janney Montgomery Scott, on Friday last week and due to the fact that it was a shorter issue, and your good credit rating, but once we got the bids for insurance the Underwriters wanted to purchase the insurance. We went to four different insurance companies. The premiums were pretty low. The market is pretty full right now with other bond issues going on and refinances because we have had this little drop in rates and they felt that even despite your AA rating they would be able to get better interest rates with the AAA that you get with insurance. It was something that we definitely discussed. It ended up that the low cost premium versus the premiums you get as an AAA resulted in better savings.

Mr. Haste: As long as you took a look at it. On the surface it looks like one that I wouldn't think we needed it.

Mr. Verdelli: That is exactly what our thoughts were too.

Mr. Hartwick: Are we going to move for adoption today?

Mr. Haste: Do you have any questions?

Mr. Hartwick: I do not.

Mr. DiFrancesco: No questions.

It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick that the Board adopt Ordinance #5-2005, as captioned below; motion carried.

AN ORDINANCE OF THE BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS OF THE COUNTY OF DAUPHIN, PENNSYLVANIA (THE "COUNTY") AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING ISSUANCE OF GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS, SERIES D OF 2005, IN THE AGGREGATE PRINCIPAL AMOUNT OF $5,315,000 (THE "2005D BONDS"), AS PERMITTED BY AND PUSRSUANT TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNIT DEBT ACT, 53 PA.C.S. ? 8001 et seq., FOR THEPURPOSED OF PROVIDING FUNDS TO BE APPLIED FOR AND TOWARD A PROJECT CONSISTING OF THE REFUNDING OF ALL OF THE COUNTY'S OUTSTANDING GENERAL OBLIGATION NOTES, SERIES E OF 2000 (THE "2000E NOTES") (THE "2000E NOTES REFUNDIGN PROJECT") DETERMINING THAT THE 2005D BONDS SHALL BE SOLD AT PRIVATE SALE BY NEGOTIATION; DETERMINING THAT SUCH DEBT SHALL BE NONELECTORAL DEBT OF THE COUNTY; ACCEPTING A PROPOSAL FOR PURCHASE OF THE 2005D BONDS, AT PRIVATE SALE, AND AWARDING THE 2005D BONDS; PROVIDING FOR MATURITIES AND INTEREST RATES; APPOINTING A PAYING AGENT, REGISTRAR AND SINKING FUND DEPOSITORY; PROVIDING FOR THE TERMS OF THE 2005D BONDS INCLUDING DENOMINATIONS, DATE, INTEREST PAYMENT DATES AND RECORD DATES; PROVIDING FOR THE REGISTRATION AND TRANSFER OF THE 2005D BONDS; STATING THAT THE 2005D BONDS ARE NOT SUBJECT TO REDEMPTION PRIOR TO MATURITY; AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTION AND AUTHENTICATION OF THE 2005D BONDS; COVENANTING TO PAY DEBT SERVICE AND PLEDGING THE FULL FAITH, CREDIT AND TAXING POWER FOR THE PAYMENT OF THE 2005D BONDS; CREATING A SINKING FUND IN CONNECTION WITH THE 2005D BONDS AS REQUIRED BY SUCH ACT; APPROPRIATING PROCEEDS OF THE 2005D BONDS; DESCRIBING THE PROJECT FOR WHICH DEBT OF THE COUNTY EVIDENCED BY SAID 2000E NOTES WAS ORIGINALLY INCURRED AND REAFFIRMING THE ESTIMATED USEFUL LIFE OF SAID PROJECT; SETTING FORTH CERTAIN COVENANTS RELATING TO THE NON-ARBITRAGE STATUS OF THE 2005D BONDS; RATIFYING PRIOR ADVERTISEMENT AND DIRECTING FURTHER ADVERTISEMENT; AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE PREPARATION, EXECUTION AND FILING OF A TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS, INCLUDING A DEBT STATEMENT AND BORROWING BASE CERTIFICATE, WITH THE PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT; AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE OFFICERS AND OFFICIALS OF THE COUNTY TO EXECUTE AND DELIVER DOCUMENTS AND TO TAKE ACTION AS MAY BE NECESSARY RELATING TO THE ISSUANCE OF THE 2005D BONDS; RATIFYING THE PRELIMINARY OFFICIAL STATEMENT AND THE DISTRIBUTION THEREOF AND AUTHORIZING THE APPROVAL AND DISTRIBUTION OF A FINAL OFFICIAL STATEMENT AND THE USE THEREOF IN CONNECTION WITH THE SALE OF THE 2005D BONDS; CREATING A CLEARING ACCOUNT AND AN ESCROW FUND; SETTING FORTH CERTAIN COVENANTS RELATING TO PROVISIONS FOR RETIREMENT OF THE 2000E NOTES; DIRECTING THE IRREVOCABLE DEPOSIT AND INVESTMENT OF AN AMOUNT OF PROCEEDS OF THE SERIES 2005D BONDS WHICH, TOGETHER WITH INTEREST TO BE EARNED THEREON, WILL BE SUFFICIENT TO PAY THE PRINCIPAL OF AND INTEREST ON THE 2000E NOTES WHEN DUE, UPON MATURITY OR REDEMPTION, AS APPLICABLE; APPROVING AND AUTHORIZING EXECUTION OF AN ESCROW AGREEMENT; APPOINTING AN ESCROW AGENT; AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASE OF ESCROW INVESTMENTS; AUTHORIZING THE PAYMENT OF EXPENSES; PROVIDING GUIDELINES FOR PERMITTED INVESTMENTS; AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASE OF A POLICY OF MUNICIPAL BOND INSURANCE; PROVIDING FOR THE AUTHORIZATION OF OFFICERS; ADOPTING THE FORM OF THE 2005D BONDS; COVENANTING TO PROVIDE CONTINUING DISCLOSURE; PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY OF PROVISIONS AND REPEALING INCONSISTENT ORDINANCES.

(The entire Ordinance #5-2005 is on file in the Commissioners' Office.)

1. Sharon Way, Manager of Benefits and Compensation, Personnel Office
   1. MERP for 2006

Ms. Way: On the Agenda today to present to you are some proposed changes by Alpha for 2006. Alpha currently pays the providers directly. This has to do with our MERP Plan, the deductible plan. When an employee goes and has the service and the deductible applies, Alpha gets the report through Highmark and processes the payment for the deductible and then sends the payment to the provider. They are now proposing that instead of paying the provider, the payment gets sent to the employee. This will help eliminate confusion by employees as far as if bills have been paid or not. Because, a lot of employees continue to get bills and they call me and Alpha saying that they got this bill again and ask was it paid yet. Alpha goes through the report to let them know if it has been paid because maybe they haven't gotten their confirmation from Alpha yet. This would send the payment directly to the employee and then the employee can either pay for the service up front or wait for the reimbursement from Alpha or they can wait for the payment from Alpha and then in turn pay the provider themselves. That might eliminate some of the credit notices coming. Direct deposit is another proposal that would go along with that change.

Mr. Haste: It is clear now that it is the employee's responsibility.

Ms. Way: Yes.

Ms. Way: This also eliminates a whole lot of waiting in the case of an overpayment to a Doctor. Trying to get that money back from the employee is difficult.

We have quite a few employees who still, for whatever reason, go and have the service done and get a bill. They in turn pay the provider forgetting that we will then pay them. Then what happens is when Alpha pays the provider the employee is responsible for going back and getting their money back from the provider. Sometimes the provider sends our check back and then we have to send it back to them. It causes a lot of confusion. This may help with some of that confusion if the employees are paid directly.

Alpha is also working on a web link for employees to access their 2006 MERP Plan Account information. They are currently working on this and hoping to have it implemented by January 2005, but they are not making any promises at this point. They do hope to have it up and running in 2006 so that employees can actually go on line and check their accounts to see what has been reimbursed and what has not and what they are waiting for. Alpha will continue to either process the Highmark file or they will do paper submission and retain the same fee schedule as they had for 2005 for 2006.

Mr. Hartwick: Do you have a computing proposal from Highmark that outlines their services? I always like to in the competitive world where there are two different folks who offer services, administratively Highmark might have been able to administer the MERP Program a little more efficiently and a little bit cheaper. Do we have an alternative proposal for us to be able to examine?

Ms. Way: Yes, we got one from Highmark. Highmark can actually administer the plan. Under Highmark it would be referred to an HRA, a Health Reimbursement Account. Pretty much the MERP and the HRA are very similar animals. There is really not much of a difference between them. Highmark uses EBDS Company. Normally Highmark would be able to do an automated system through sending EBDS a file, just like they do Alpha, but because our plan only covers the deductible, our so called HRA, and it doesn't cover other medical expenses like co-pays and that stuff. They would be unable to do that. We would have to switch back to total manual submission by the employee if we wanted to go with the Highmark Plan. It did come in about $1,000 cheaper a month than what it is costing us with Alpha.

Mr. Hartwick: We want to be able to review them. Send both of those proposals to the Commissioners so we are able to review them and make a recommendation.

Ms. Way: Yes.

Mr. Haste: Do you have a recommendation?

Ms. Way: There is not really one thing that is better over the other. As far as that way, if you want to break it down to cost that is the only difference. Of course, there is also the total manual submission with Highmark versus still being able to do the automated. There are issues with the automated process, such as confusion with duplicate claims, duplicate claims that show up on the report that are not marked duplicate and Alpha ends up paying them and then it looks like the person met their deductible before they really did. It is causing some issues, but we are slowly working those kinks out of the system. Alpha has done due diligence to get the money back that is due back to us. I think in a two and half month period, they were able to get back $17,000 that was basically overpaid because of the way the Highmark report is. The Highmark Report is missing specific information as far as what the services were, because of HIPPA. They are unable to provide procedure codes and that stuff. So, Alpha is not able to determine that it is a duplicate claim then.

Mr. Haste: When you say a manual submission is that by the employee or your staff?

Ms. Way: By the employee, like we were doing in the beginning of this year.

Mr. Haste: How many folks use the automated process now?

Ms. Way: The majority of them do, but the more and more phone calls that I get the more and more I tell them to do the manual, because people are still getting credit notices, still wondering if their bill is going to be paid or when it is going to be paid. The first question I ask them is have you received an EOB from Highmark, yes I have, take it, submit it and it will be paid. Call Alpha first to make sure that they haven't paid it yet and if they didn't just submit it manually and you will get it paid right away versus waiting a month. I have been telling people to submit it manually if they don't like waiting.

Mr. Haste: So, the automated isn't really a plus at this point?

Ms. Way: No it is not. Other than taking away the procedure to fill out paperwork, which when this was first announced it was like no don't make me fill this out, but I think it worked out fine. When we went to the automated, we thought it would make everybody's lives easier and to be honest I think my phone rings triple what it rang before. Alpha obviously gets tons of calls from people wanting to know when things are going to be paid, because we are only getting that report on a monthly basis. If someone goes for a service at the end of the month it is going to take until two months down the road till it is paid and in the meantime you are getting notices from the providers, second notices and then credit notices. In my eyes, it really hasn't made things easier.

Mr. Hartwick: The only advantage I see to actually contracting with Alpha is sort of like having a third party looking out as to what Highmark is doing. We have caught, on more than one occasion, some overpayments that would have went against our experience and utilization that Alpha has brought to our attention and we have then brought to the attention of Highmark. We will make sure that amount of money that was overpaid from Highmark did not go against our utilization and experience. I'm always looking for the best cost, which I think Highmark probably can do it more efficiently, but there is an advantage in having a third party there sort of keeping an eye on the claims submissions.

Mr. Haste: Doesn't Highmark use a third party?

Ms. Way: EBDS is sort of like a third party, but I don't know.

Mr. Haste: Can you find out before we make a decision?

Ms. Way: Yes.

Mr. Haste: If they serve the same role as Alpha and they are cheaper, but quite frankly if they are just another arm of Highmark.

Ms. Way: If they are just sitting there processing reimbursements and not really looking at the data and doing what Alpha has been doing, kind of scrutinizing it.

Mr. Haste: If they say that they do that maybe we should see who else has used them and see if in fact that is true.

Ms. Way: Definitely. The other thing that Alpha has brought to our attention is with the COBRA. The COBRA participants are also offered the $1,000 deductible that we reimburse. They pay 102% of the premium on that high deductible plan. So, really if someone is utilizing the plan and we are reimbursing their $1,000 deductible, we are not recouping that money through the premium that they are paying. Alpha is suggesting that we use an actuarial equivalent to the no deductible plan that we used to have. Get what a premium would be for that and then you charge them 102% of that. That way it helps supplement what we are reimbursing on the COBRA participants $1,000 deductible. That is something that we should definitely take a look at and see how it pans out. We probably only have about 25 people truly on COBRA at any given time. It is probably not real high dollars that we are spending on those people's deductibles. Every little bit helps. I will pull together the Highmark proposal for EBDS and I will contact them and ask them about what all they do, if they scrutinize claims and that type of stuff and will get a referral and references.

Mr. Haste: Did you submit anything to the Solicitor's Office yet?

Ms. Way: As far as the Highmark thing, no.

Mr. Haste: As soon as you get that give it to them to speed up the process.

Ms. Way: If we decide to go with Alpha, we already have a service agreement with them that was good until February 2006, so we would just extend it to February 2007. If you do go with paying the claims directly to the employee and that stuff, we would just have to do a plan document amendment and Alpha would provide that to us.

Mr. Hartwick: Actually I would start to move forward on that unless there are objections from the Board.

1. Greg Schneider of Budget & Finance
   1. Mileage vs. Car Pool

Mr. Schneider: The task that was presented to me was to analyze whether it would be better for us to add to the fleet or to continue to pay travel as we are at this time. I handed out charts to everybody and graphs so if anybody has any questions about them, please let me know.

Mr. Haste: Can you go over them, because I didn't look at them.

Mr. Schneider: What we did here is tried to find a break-off point on how many miles would be needed to be used by the fleet car for it to become beneficial to use that car over using travel pay. We did this by factoring all the costs it would take for the car, average cost whether it be lease or purchasing per year, also for the maintenance, we used a $2.00 per gallon figure, which of course could fluctuate at any time. Of course, we have a cheaper price out at the County. Using all of this and then balancing it against the travel usage for that same amount of miles, as you can see the Tauras there is a break off point at almost 13,000 miles. So, that is the quantified figures that we have there. It is a hard problem to quantify because each department has different travel policies and regulations and a number of cars to their access. There are some departments, like Children and Youth, which takes about half the travel amount, it would probably be infeasible for them to get any kind of cars because the people have to drive from the houses and plus they get reimbursed for 88% of their travel from the State. That alleviates itself, because of all the money we get from the State it would not be feasible to provide them with fleet cars because it would be hard for them to get that 88% reimbursable if they knew that they were coming from the homes. They would have to explain, which would be a lot tougher on people driving from home and getting reimbursed for that.

Mr. Hartwick: Unless the State would be willing to pay for the cars. It might be cheaper for them to do that.

Mr. Schneider: It could be cheaper for them to do that, it might be something that Children and Youth might want to propose to the State.

Mr. Saylor: When you first showed this to me I asked you about the car cost insurance. Do you have any idea of what the insurance costs per car is?

Mr. Schneider: I asked Garry and he said that since it is self-insured it would not increase. Is that correct Garry?

Mr. Esworthy: That is correct.

Mr. Schneider: They haven't come back with any figures, Garry also suggested that we look into a rental option where people that want to go to conferences and the like we would just have rental cars. They have not gotten back with any figures yet. As for individual departments, the one that was really receptive to possibly getting cars for their departments was actually Tax Assessment. They have five people that go out every day and they are one of the highest uses.

Mr. Haste: That is total County dollars.

Mr. Schneider: Steve says it averages about 15,000 to 17,000 miles a year. By figuring out how much they charge it comes out more to 12,000. I don't know if they are under reporting, but I think it would probably be a good thing to look into maybe giving them two cars at first to see how it goes to see how much we would save on that.

Mr. Haste: Why would you just give them two?

Mr. Schneider: Do it all or not at all.

Mr. Haste: How many assessors does he have?

Mr. Schneider: Five assessors that go out pretty much every day.

Mr. DiFrancesco: How did you determine $4,000 for the car costs?

Mr. Schneider: That is a high figure.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Is that.

Mr. Schneider: That is over four years. It is $16,000 for the entire car. Right now we can get them for a little cheaper than that. I wanted to go on the high end.

Mr. Haste: If we were to buy them a Honda Civic.

Mr. Schneider: That is why I threw that in there. It might be more economical.

Mr. Haste: We could buy motorcycles.

Mr. Schneider: With little side cars.

Mr. Haste: Coke could give out one of their free bicycles.

Mr. DiFrancesco: We would be providing for wellness and tax considerations.

Mr. Schneider: If we wanted to go the route of a more fuel efficient car, I have already talked to some local dealers who have vehicles that get 35 to 38 miles per gallon. They would be very much interested in an RFP for something like that. We could tailor the RFP to gas mileage.

Mr. Hartwick: I know that we have a lot of different travel policies, but it would probably be better for me to take a look at this by departments to see what makes sense for each department. Rather than doing something that varies with the different amount of travel for each department. We need to look at where their funding sources come from and take a look at each department to see if it would make sense from the actual amount of County dollars, general fund dollars, that go in supporting travel, and whether or not that would be a wise investment per department versus at just taking a look at whether or not we can do this overall. I need to see more of a specific breakdown to see where it would save money in each one of those departments. We should determine it by departments.

Mr. Haste: I agree. The only other thing I would do is have Dave look at the contracts to make sure that if we provide them some where we don't get nailed with "me too" somewhere else.

Mr. Schreiber: The policy that we put together has that in there.

Mr. Haste: One bargaining unit in particular comes to my mind where cars are the hot item. We just need to make sure that we are not setting ourselves up for a problem we are not thinking about.

Mr. Schneider: It seemed like a lot of the departments, because I did talk to a lot of the different departments, mostly the criminal justice departments seemed to like the way it is going right now. They get a lot of their cars from drug forfeiture sales and stuff like that.

Mr. Haste: That makes sense because that is where we get some other additional funds, so it is not total general fund dollars. For those that are all general fund dollars we should take a hard look at.

PERSONNEL

Ms. Sinner: First in the Personnel Packet are the Salary Board requests. Spring Creek is reclassifying their Linen Services Supervisor into a Manager position, because the Supervisor is the sole person overseeing that department. They are eliminating a full-time Dietary Aide and eliminating a part-time Podiatrist position. The Clerk of Courts is eliminating the part-time temporary Department Clerk I that was created to fill in during the training of the new computer system. They have had a Teamster's Clerk III vacant for months and this person is going to be promoted into the Teamster's Clerk III position.

Mr. Haste: Why a Clerk III? Why are they going to start out as a Clerk III?

Ms. Sinner: That is what the position is.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Which position are you talking about?

Mr. Haste: The one in the Clerk of Courts Office. Why wouldn't it be a Clerk I?

Ms. Sinner: I don't know that. They don't seem to reclassify those positions.

Mr. Haste: We should take a look at that, because.

Ms. Sinner: Dave and I can take a look at that.

Mr. Haste: There are few places in the County where you start out as a Clerk III.

Ms. Sinner: I can take a look at that to see what the job responsibilities are.

Central Court is eliminating a part-time temporary Legal Clerk I that they created when they were training someone to move into the Night Court position. There are some changes around in various magisterial district justice offices. We are eliminating a part-time Legal Clerk in Pianka's Office and creating a full-time. Night Court is eliminating a part-time Legal Clerk III and creating a part-time Legal Clerk I. The bargaining agreement calls for clerks working in Night Court to be paid at a Legal Clerk III rate of pay. It does not really say that they have to be classified as a Legal Clerk III. They have always been classified as a III. We are going to start having them classified as a I so they can also fill in at any district justice office during the day and be paid as a Legal Clerk I. We didn't want confusion if they are classified as a III and then they think that they should be paid as a III when they are only doing Clerk I work.

Mr. Haste: So, it is really sort of out-of-class pay when they are at Night Court.

Ms. Sinner: Correct.

Mr. Haste: You will get back to us on the Clerk of Courts request?

Ms. Sinner: Yes.

Mr. Haste: If there are any Clerk I or Clerk II employees there now and someone comes off the street and starts as a Clerk III, are we not going to have some issues?

Ms. Sinner: We could. I kind of wondered about that myself, but I just know that we had that vacancy.

Mr. Hartwick: Did we get an addendum from Area Agency on Aging?

Ms. Sinner: What I did was just added it to the transaction listing and distributed a new transaction list. It is the very last item.

Mr. Haste: Marie, do you have any questions?

Ms. Rebuck: No.

Ms. Sinner: In the Request to Fill Vacancies, Spring Creek is just requesting to fill a part-time Custodian and a full-time Custodian. Children and Youth have two items. The District Attorney has a legal stenographer vacancy to fill. Information Technology is requesting permission to fill their WAN Administrator position. This position has been vacant for a while. Personnel and Payroll is requesting permission to fill the Personnel Analyst I that Anne Volcko had filled. In fact, we do have a hire in the packet to replace her. The Prison is requesting to fill an Executive Secretary and File Clerk position. The Prothonotary's Office is requesting to fill six per diem Tipstaff/Court Clerk vacancies. Domestic Relations is requesting to fill three Department Clerk vacancies. Juvenile Probation has some Probation Officer positions that they are requesting to fill. The MDJ Court Administration has an Administrative Assistant I vacancy to fill. We have various hires, this being the window for the hiring freeze. There are various Personnel Changes, including that transfer/promotion in the Clerk of Courts that I will be checking on.

Mr. Haste: In the Prison, I knew about the Executive Secretary. Where is the File Clerk, is that in Records?

Ms. Sinner: No, the Records Officer is a different position. I don't think they have a hire for the File Clerk.

Mr. Haste: Where is it located?

Ms. Sinner: I can check on that. I'm not exactly sure.

Mr. Haste: This one is not ringing a bell to me.

Ms. Sinner: It is just called Prison File Clerk. I have a job description.

Mr. Haste: Check on that and let me know. Is the person transferring over from a DJ Office?

Ms. Sinner: The person going into the Records Officer position, which has been vacant for a while is transferring from DJ Smith's Office. This is not the File Clerk position. The File Clerk position is a union position in the PSSU Union. It is in the Treatment Department of the Prison.

Mr. Haste: She has about five or six vacancies over there right now.

Ms. Sinner: They have Treatment Specialist vacancies and this is a Clerk. It involves the organization and maintenance of the filing system in the Treatment Department. Are there any other questions?

Mr. Hartwick: Kim, while you are here, is there any way that we can set up a time to meet after the meeting for us to go over the budget this year? I would also like to get an update if we could on the reimbursement proposals that are coming out of the Ways and Means committee of the US House of Representatives that talk about reducing the federal reimbursement money to counties from 66% Federal reimbursement to 50% reimbursement, which is going to be a huge impact. It means that we will have to figure out ways to pair down and change the operation if that actually happens.

Ms. Robison: The version from the Senate Finance Committee does not include cuts to the Child Support Program. The House of Representatives version does. When the vote was done it was 217 yes and 215 no. It only passed by two votes. So, after Thanksgiving the Committee will reconvene.

Mr. Haste: We had an email from Mike about that this morning. I believe it was from Mike.

Mr. Saylor: At your direction I did meet with Bruce Foreman to look at the County Code. Then Kay, Mike Yohe and I sat down to discuss salary board activity. As required by law every year we do present you with a list of pay rates for non-bargaining employees. What we are going to endeavor to do, in addition to that document, is every year give you a document that is a comprehensive list of every position on the County payroll, both filled and not filled, so that you can review and approve that. Kay and Mike are going to track each other's activities more closely so that the salary board records are more in tune with what is approved in the budget and vice versa. The goal is going to be that the Salary Board will consider new position creations at the January meeting after the budget is passed in December and then again sometime in July after the fiscal year Budget is adopted. The goal will be that in between, the Salary Board does not consider any new position creations, except in special circumstances. That is going to be the goal that we are heading towards. Hopefully it will keep our records consistent and will also give you guys a better feel for the County workforce. Do you have any questions?

Mr. Haste: I will believe it when I see it.

PURCHASE ORDERS

Mr. Baratucci: The packet was distributed yesterday. There are three pages where we need to do some budget adjustments. They are in the works. I don't know if you have any questions on the packet, if you do I will answer them, if not they will be fixed budget wise and submitted next week for your approval. Do you have any questions?

Mr. Hartwick: I would like to know what the seven digital cameras are for. I never saw that request from Tax Assessment.

Mr. Baratucci: They told me that they are for the assessors and are to replace ones that have used up their shelf live.

Mr. Haste: I thought we have five assessors.

Mr. Baratucci: Jeannie gave this to me and said that they were for the assessors so I assumed that they had seven. I'm not familiar on how many they have.

Mr. DiFrancesco: What does it mean that a digital camera has used up its shelf life?

Mr. Baratucci: They are not working well any more.

Mr. Hartwick: That issue has never been brought to my attention.

Mr. Baratucci: Maybe I shouldn't say not working well, but there are newer and better cameras.

Mr. DiFrancesco: There are newer and better everything. As long as they still take pictures we don't need newer and better.

Mr. Baratucci: That is why the request is there. They are $189 a piece and there are some other accessories that go with them.

Mr. Hartwick: You know what I love how the budget amount is $1,898.00 and it is the end of the year and there request happens to come in for $1,897.34.

Mr. Baratucci: Obviously the money was moved into there to cover these from another line item. As you know, last year there were no monies put in people's equipment accounts. What they are doing now is if they want to buy equipment they have to move money into there and this is Tax Assessment's request. Obviously I assumed that they ran this by their oversight. I will report back to them that you have questions with it.

Mr. Hartwick: I meet with him every week.

Mr. Baratucci: I'll talk to Steve.

Mr. Hartwick: Page 7, I know this is still back to this gun thing. What is the deal with the night sights? Is that a necessary requirement for these things?

Mr. Baratucci: That was part of the specification. This is the bid that we did and there have been numerous emails back and forth as to whether or not we should be getting this number. As I stated last week the resolution that I am trying to come up with, because we did award the bid and the bid is good for 45 days, but we do need to either order them or make whatever changes. My understanding was again this was a union agreement that we needed to honor and money is in the budget this year so it is there for your approval. If we need to change an amount, I don't know if Chad got any responses back from the Sheriff's Office. Again, there were numerous emails back and forth.

Mr. Hartwick: Which quite frankly leads us to this position and I would like to have the Sheriff answer some of the questions related to this budget item.

Mr. Baratucci: I will have him get in touch with the Commissioners between now and next week.

Mr. Hartwick: Or, come to the next Commissioners' Meeting.

Mr. Saylor: What issues are you specifically talking about, the firearms?

Mr. Baratucci: Yes.

Mr. Saylor: The bottom line is that I think I shared with one of you he wants 55 pistols and he has 35 full-time deputies and we are required to purchase side arms for them. Currently he has 11 part-timers and he wants to acquire pistols for all of them as well. Then there are four or five administrators such as himself, Mary Jane, Chuck, which gets him to about 50 and then he wanted about 5 extra. I had suggested a couple of different options all of which were shot down. At the end of the day if he were to cut back to 45 the savings would be about $5,000.

Mr. Baratucci: They are about $650 a piece, $6,500.

Mr. Hartwick: It would be nice to get just what we need and are required to get.

Mr. Baratucci: Are we only required to provide for full-time deputies?

Mr. Saylor: We need to get for all full-time and part-time deputies. Now, whether part-timers could share is another question. We talked about the way the Warden handles his. There is a requirement that, for example, full-timers need to have their own weapon.

Mr. Hartwick: Could he answer the questions instead of you?

Mr. Saylor: I can ask him to come over.

Mr. Baratucci: Were you guys copied on any of these emails?

Commissioners: Yes.

Mr. Baratucci: Do you want him to come to the next meeting or talk to you prior to?

Mr. Hartwick: I would like to have a conversation with him about his explanation. I'm more confused after reading the emails than I was before.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Question, the contract covers the full-timers and part-timers and certainly does not cover the management staff?

Mr. Saylor: Correct.

Mr. DiFrancesco: They are asking for how many reserve guns?

Mr. Haste: Five.

Mr. DiFrancesco: There are four management staff.

Mr. Baratucci: The 46 would be the required.

Mr. Haste: Nine consist of four for management and.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Plus five back-ups. I think the four guns for management would be the back-ups. I can see why they want to have back-up weapons, but that is insane. We are not required to buy it for the management team.

Mr. Saylor: I think it would also be good to investigate. The Warden handles firearms, although the prison guards are different than a sheriff's deputy. He has some locker systems for his part-timers where they keep their guns. I think that is a legitimate question as to how these guns are going to be stored.

Mr. Haste: Not just part-timers, but for everyone.

Mr. Saylor: Are they going to be taking these guns home with them? He and I were just discussing before this meeting what happens if a deputy sheriff is walking down the street and witnesses a bank robbery, he is technically a law enforcement official. I will bring him in to a meeting.

Mr. Hartwick: And he needs night sights.

Mr. Haste: We do have an obligation under the contract to purchase weapons and we need to do that. Whether we get an additional five or nine or whatever that is the issue that we have to resolve. We do have an obligation to do it, so at the very minimum we need to be purchasing 46 guns, depending on how we want to deal with the part-timers whether we issue them or locker them and use them is a different story. That is a management issue, but we do have an obligation to purchase 46 guns.

Mr. Hartwick: Agreed.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Right.

Mr. Baratucci: I will make sure he gets either with you or comes to the meeting next week.

Mr. Hartwick: Page 9, I just find it interesting that we need 17 brand new paper shredders for each one of the district justices.

Mr. Baratucci: This was discussed a month or two ago where the Courts had X number of dollars in the DJ budgets to purchase long overdue items that have not been purchased for a lengthy period of time. I was told that they were sort of given an okay to use up this money. Again, I think that reverts back. It reverts back to the policy of the Courts being able to manage the amount of money that you give them as they see fit. That is my understanding. I understand that one Commissioner any way wanted the Chief Clerk to review that for future budgets, but in the 2005 budget that is what they tell me their agreement was with the Board. This is how they are choosing to spend the allotment of money that they were given. That is my understanding and explanation.

Mr. Haste: The discussion last year at the budget was that they had a bottom line to meet and that was my argument for wanting to cut that bottom line even more. It didn't work, but the understanding was that we weren't putting money in equipment, but if they were able to manage their budget appropriately, they could purchase things that they felt necessary as long as they stayed in the bottom line.

Mr. Baratucci: This is one for every DJ office.

Mr. Hartwick: Just a little commonsense. See which ones are working and which ones aren't, just buying 17 new ones.

Mr. Baratucci: They never had any before.

Mr. Hartwick: All brand new so we will have to have maintenance contracts and everything else with these.

Mr. Baratucci: I don't think we will have any maintenance contracts on them.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I think it is important to state for the record that for whatever reason, and it was not a financial reason in years past, the DJ offices were left go and their needs were not met. It was not a budgetary matter. It was a decision made by the leadership of the Courts at the time. Now we have a new President Judge who is coming in. I think he is taking a very good and fair look at the offices to see what their needs are and he is trying to catch up now for basically what I guess some could argue would be neglect of those offices for a long period of time. It's not like I think there is a lot of wasteful spending going on, finally they got somebody who is going out and checking out to verify what the needs are of those offices and they are trying to make good under the agreement that we agreed to last year during the budget process. At this point in time I don't think the Courts deserve criticism on what they are trying to do, because for a very long time, I think at least the district justice segment of the Courts budget, was probably overlooked and neglected. Now, it is not. Now it is being addressed.

Mr. Haste: In fact how it was handled before was the Court Administrator in charge of the district justices would say that the Commissioners didn't put any money in the budget for them. Therefore, you can't get it and then when the budget was presented we would sit here and hear how wonderful they managed their budget and how much money they didn't spend when they were really not meeting certain maintenance items that needed to be done.

Mr. Baratucci: The bottom line is if that was the agreement I think it should be honored, but I'm not sure that is the best way to do it in the future. I think they should identify, just like everyone else does, what their needs are at budget time and you approve or disapprove those items.

Mr. Haste: I agree and we ought to do that a little tighter, however, every department at this time of the year looks at where they have been able to save money and then they try to purchase those items that they feel they need to in order to operate. Sometimes those items are foreseen and we cut them from the budget and other times they are not foreseen. At some point in time we can get a little crazy with our micro-managing up here. I do think we need to be a little more on top of it than those who sat here before us. To get crazy and micro-manage is just getting crazy.

Mr. Baratucci: I think what happened previously, the last couple years, with the problems with our funding, the first thing that was always wiped out of everybody's budget was equipment. In fairness, the last couple years this is the only way they could do it, because they were not given any money even if you thought their requests were valuable requests. They were told to manage with what they had and then we will see. That is I think what you are seeing in the last couple years. Hopefully our picture is a little bit better and we can do it neater.

Mr. Hartwick: My attempt is not to micro-manage, but when I see 17 paper shredders you want to find out why every office needs one or if they are using commonsense.

Mr. Haste: They probably should have had them all along and didn't. I was at a meeting where the previous deputy court administrator would sit there and say the reason you don't have necessary equipment is because the Commissioners didn't put it in the budget. And yet they would come here two weeks later and pat themselves on the back on how much money they turned back in.

Mr. Baratucci: Bob Hawley and I talked about this and one of the problems is that we have this large unit out at the warehouse where if people can take their stuff there it can be shredded, but you run into this confidentiality issue with some of the stuff. So, he felt that it was better if each DJ could have one of these and if you have stuff that isn't confidential they are still going to haul it out to the warehouse where we have a large shredder.

Mr. Hartwick: Last issue is 13, is that money that was going to be reallocated, the request from Aging that they wanted to use some of this surplus money? Are they going to be moving those dollars to replace one of those meals on wheels van?

Mr. Baratucci: They did replace one earlier. This is the second vehicle. I haven't heard back from them on the difference, it is about $7,000 short. I made a call yesterday and I haven't heard back yet.

Mr. Haste: Find out where this one is going. Is it going into our fleet or one of the others?

Mr. Hartwick: To be honest, with the surplus money we were only to purchase one van and this is in addition to that van, which is why I have a question. I was unaware that there was an additional purchase needed.

Mr. Baratucci: This is almost identical to the one approved earlier this year.

Mr. Hartwick: I'll contact Bob to see if I can get an explanation.

Mr. Baratucci: Hang on a second, there is something attached, which may explain it. This van will replace a 1992 van with over 123,000 miles. The purchase of this vehicle is through a Community Development Block Grant. It was previously approved by the Commissioners and it will deliver meals to the sixteen senior centers throughout the County.

TRAINING PACKET

Mr. Haste: Is there anything on the training packet that needs approved now?

Mr. Saylor: No.

ITEM FOR DISCUSSION

Mr. Hartwick: I just have one related to the Solicitor's Report.

SOLICITOR'S REPORT - WILLIAM TULLY, ESQ.

Mr. Hartwick: On #6, the Delta Dental Contract, I know we have separate contracts for some of the union folks. They have Delta and the rest of the County has United Concordia. I know United Concordia has offered almost the exact same benefits that Delta has or does Delta offer additional benefits that United Concordia does not?

Ms. Way: Delta offers less.

Mr. Hartwick: That is what I thought. The reason why I say that is because the rates for United Concordia are lower than those of Delta. Has it ever been brought to the attention of the bargaining unit that they may be able to receive additional benefits and the County could actually save dollars if they chose to join with United Concordia because they are willing to offer the same deal and the same premiums to those union folks?

Ms. Way: As far as the cost goes between Delta and United Concordia, we have four Delta Dental contracts that vary any where from $40 a month up to I believe the highest one is $48.75, but the one that is $48.75 a month we have gotten year-to-date through three quarters $11,000 of that money back, because we are self-insured on those plans. So, we really are not paying $48.75, because we have gotten close to $11,000 back in three quarters. It doesn't really cost us more on the Delta side and they do have a lesser plan than what United Concordia has.

Mr. Hartwick: I just think with some continuity of government, I talked to Vince Pinizzotto with United Concordia who is willing to offer the same plans and keep it at the same rate so the County wouldn't have to be charged additional money. It would seem to make sense to at least make that offer to the unions. There would be additional benefits and no additional cost to them and it certainly wouldn't be an additional cost to the County.

Ms. Way: I don't think you want to be offering them additional benefits without getting something in return. You don't want to just go to them and say here have this dental plan without negotiating something else. I think that is something that we could use as a bargaining tool.

Mr. Hartwick: Just so we are aware of it.

Mr. Haste: There are a number of items that we need to get back that were given away foolishly.

Ms. Way: We are doing very well with the Delta Dental plan. Like I said we have gotten $11,000 back. Almost all of the four contracts have all resulted over three quarters in getting money back in some way or another. The Prison quarters we have actually owed money, but there have been quarters where we have gotten money back. It kind of all washed itself out that we are actually for the good in getting money back from them. I even contacted Delta and asked them for the group that we are paying $48.75, why we can't pay less instead of giving them our money and then waiting for them to give it back to us, why just not reduce the rate.

Mr. Hartwick: If there is a savings then it is my misinformation. We will continue to do it and use it as a bargaining chip for the next contract.

Mr. Schreiber: There is also some relationship between the unions and Delta. I'm not sure what that is, but there is some internal relationship. It is only the Teamster's.

REPORT FROM CHIEF CLERK/CHIEF OF STAFF - CHAD SAYLOR

Mr. Saylor: I have nothing except to say at this time of year how thankful I am to be serving the three of you.

Mr. Haste: Go stuff that turkey.

COMMISSIONERS' COMMENTS

Mr. DiFrancesco: Just one comment to the solicitors, I just want to make sure that the contracts for the communications towers and that whole project is moving along. I know there were some issues going on with vendors, but I want to absolutely make certain time wise that project is moving along without any glitches.

Mr. Tully: They are a priority status.

Mr. Hartwick: I was probably more disheartened to sit through our CCAP Human Service Policy Committee and then the update on the Federal issues related to funding cuts that are going to be passed on again to property taxpayers in this County and other counties across this country, as a result of additional huge funding cuts. They are $35 billion in proposed funding cuts in health and human services from the Federal level. I think the argument that we have made has been if you are going to pass along funding cuts and require counties again to be able to foot the bills for those individuals to serve them you need to define to us, not just where you placed the cuts, but what individual populations we are not to serve. We are tired of putting the burden of health and human services on the backs of county property tax owners. It is a Federal and State responsibility to further push itself away from having to make decisions. The State now is considering spending caps as a way to avoid having to make tough decisions. As Federal funding cuts come down to the State level, the State is now considering putting spending caps, which sound great to the public, we want to place spending caps on ourselves, but it ultimately shields them from having to do their job again, which is to make tough choices about where the dollars go to local and county governments. As a result of the Federal funding cuts, instead of having to make those tough decisions, they are going to say that we have spending caps and we can't make those decisions. It is going to give them another way to pass those costs again to County property tax owners. Quite frankly, county property tax owners are tired of the shift. The people in health and human services deserve better and we are tired of having to go back to taxpayers to foot the bill. I know I am going to take a hard look and be an advocate and it is starting today to let folks know, everybody that I speak to who is making the decisions to reduce that funding to counties and local municipalities and what that is going to mean to taxpayers in this County. I am also going to be an advocate if you are going to cut the funding, ease up regulatory restrictions and tell us you make the decisions on what populations we are not supposed to serve. Out of the seven kids in Children and Youth Services, you tell us which four we are not supposed to provide service to. We can then have them turn around and ask you as a Federal representative why you have chosen not to fund those levels of services for those individual population groups. It is the worst that I have ever seen. From CCAP representatives it is the worst from a human services side. I think, what's happening from a Federal level is going to be affecting every county property tax owner in this County and other counties. This is not going to be the first time you hear this message. I'm going to be repeating it over and over and hopefully with a lot more success than we are able to have with this Governor this year with the Children and Youth cuts that actually took place and hit the County again in the general fund. The pass the buck routine stops. We need to educate the public about who is to blame, who is making the decisions and are forced to make tough choices between who we cut out of services or County property tax owners having to foot the bill. It is not their responsibility and I am quite frankly tired of it being passed onto those individuals in the County.

Mr. Haste: Actually I put a different spin on that. I actually think it is a good thing that the Federal and the State governments decided to cut back on spending. The bad thing is that puts the pressure on us, but if they were to go back to the old block grant system or do the cuts this is actually a good thing. So, I think what we need to be doing is, we advocate and let's encourage them for making spending cuts. I think that is a good thing. Any time the government spends less and we can keep more in our pocket I think that is a good thing, as long as, and this is the hitch in the whole thing, they allow us to make those local decisions, which they are not doing. I would quite frankly take their challenge. I would let them make those cuts. I think we can make those decisions better than the people sitting in either one of the domed facilities.

Mr. Hartwick: I would agree with you. The problem is when I asked will they be easing up regulatory requirements, will they be telling us who we are not to serve, will they be offering the counties flexibility to determine what their highest and best priorities are, and again we don't need more money, we need as Jeff suggested the opportunity to think differently and I was laughed at. I was told that is absolutely not going to be part of the equation.

Mr. Haste: I think if we start criticizing the State and Federal government for cutting spending, we are quite frankly doing just the opposite of what the taxpayers want us to do. People want all levels of government to quit spending. The problem is what we need to do is not tell them to start giving us more money, but to tell them to start taking regulatory requirements away and allow us to make the decisions. I think in our efforts of lobbying and what we are trying to move forward is again the simplest thing, go back to the old block grants. The problem is that those down there think we are not smart enough to make those decisions and they have to make them for us. I would say hold us accountable and let us make the decisions and we would be better off. That should be our message as opposed to saying put more money in it, because I think people are tired of more money being put in it. I think they want a cut.

Mr. Hartwick: The first thing is the State and Federal governments have a whole lot of different options to raise money as you are aware.

Mr. Haste: Right.

Mr. Hartwick: They have the ability to tax you for user fees, for your ability to make more money. The problem is the only places that are being cut quite frankly on the Federal level and as I see it in the area of health and human services, I see more money going into more efforts, the war effort, and more money going into tax cuts. I see more money going into a lot of other things, but I don't see any money going to the people who don't have the voice. To be honest, they are completely forgotten and that is where they are asking to be cut in these budgets are the ones in the area of health and human services. That is the only area the Ways and Means are cutting $35 billion off of this Federal budget.

Mr. Haste: That is not accurate. The Federal budget is a zero growth budget, with the exception of defense. Everything else is zero growth. There is more going into the war effort and the Defense Department has grown by 4%. To say that it is just human services is not accurate. It is across the board. There happens to be a growth in the war effort and there happens to be a 4% growth in defense, but everything else has flat lined.

Mr. Hartwick: There are $35 billion in cuts that was represented to me in the Human Service Policy Committee Meeting had been proposed by the House Ways and Means Committee; only in the area of health and human services.

Mr. Haste: That was by people who have an interest in human services. To say that is the only cut is not accurate.

Mr. Hartwick: It is the largest area that is being cut in this Federal budget. It just goes to show that there is really no domestic agenda.

Mr. Haste: Those cuts are not a bad thing, if in fact they cut the regulations as well.

Mr. Hartwick: I don't see that happening.

Mr. Haste: I'm advocating that we would be better off getting those regulations changed than we would be to say raise more money and give us more money. Quite frankly, the people are sick and tired of government asking for more money. All we are asking for, I think we could do well in this County with the amount of money that they give us right now if they would allow us to make the decision on how to spend it. I think we could do well with that. The problem is they are not giving us that flexibility. It is not an issue of giving us more money, it is the issue of giving us the flexibility.

Mr. Hartwick: If we take a look in the area of Children and Youth Services, there was a cut of $7 million from the State government last year. We were forced to put in money to make sure we had any prevention efforts. If we were going to cut that further this year.

Mr. Haste: How much money did we waste in drug and alcohol somewhere else? Again, if we would have had the ability to move monies around as we see fit.

Mr. Hartwick: But Jeff, I don't see that occurring.

Mr. Haste: It may not.

Mr. Hartwick: And we are going to be forced to consume the cuts.

Mr. Haste: I would think the taxpayers would ask us to lobby more to have the restrictions taken away than they would to have government take more money out of our pockets.

Mr. Hartwick: If that is the way that it would go I would agree, but it is not. We are going to be forced to take on cuts without any regulatory changes.

Mr. Haste: We have to advocate that.

Mr. Hartwick: I just don't see that occurring. It is going to be forced cuts to the local level. The people who don't have a voice are going to be the ones who eat it and we have to make the choice of whether we cut services again or go back to the County taxpayers to foot the bill. There are no regulatory changes. You have the State lawmakers who voted for a pay raise. You got a fund by the State lawmakers and none of that was put into children and youth services or other budget priorities that have forced counties to then go back to the taxpayers in order to pay the bills. That is money that is available for those folks. We have to make the tough choices here at the County level.

Mr. Haste: They are not going to give us any more money. So, that is just as far fetched as getting the regulations changed.

Mr. Hartwick: Those people who make the determination not to give us more money must be made accountable for the decisions that they make.

Mr. Haste: We ought to hold them accountable for not making it flexible, not by raising more money.

Mr. Hartwick: They raised the money. They already got it in the coffers. They just choose to not allow us to have any access or flexibility and I don't see that changing. The county taxpayers who say I'm tired of my property taxes going up are going to look again to say boy you county commissioners are bad because you are cutting services or you are bad because you are raising taxes, not to note who is making the cuts on the Federal and State level and pushing it onto them and not allowing the flexibility to be able to spend the dollars as we see fit.

Mr. Haste: The cuts are not bad, the flexibility is bad. I welcome and encourage the Federal and State government to reduce spending.

Mr. Hartwick: I don't at the amount of $2 million more to County taxpayers just for Children and Youth Services in this County alone last year.

Mr. Haste: If they gave us the flexibility we wouldn't be in that boat.

Mr. Hartwick: $2 million.

Mr. Haste: I think we could do that. I would be willing to take what the State gives us right now. I think this County would do well with it if we would take the money that the Federal and State government gives us right now, no more increase, if they would give us the flexibility to spend it.

Mr. Hartwick: They are going to give us a decrease.

Mr. Haste: I wouldn't care about that if they gave us the flexibility to spend it.

Mr. Hartwick: Just tell me who I'm not supposed to serve.

Mr. Haste: I'm not saying that. You are not hearing me. You are thinking the traditional redirick of that side. I'm not going to let you sit here and do that. The flexibility is the bigger issue than asking to raise more money.

Mr. Hartwick: So, in Domestic Relations, with a cut of 16% in Federal reimbursements where are we supposed to come up with that money to pay staff for collections?

Mr. Haste: You are ignoring the point that I am saying. The point is if they would give us all the Federal and State dollars that they give us right now and would remove the restrictions and say these are your dollars, here are your obligations you go do them as you see fit. We have enough money to do it.

Mr. Hartwick: But, they are going to reduce the amount of money that we are going to get and are going to continue to add more regulations. That is the direction that it is going.

Mr. Haste: We can sit here and nothing is going to happen. It is a meaningless debate.

Mr. Hartwick: It would make the Federal representatives who are making these decisions accountable for having to make those funding cuts.

Mr. Haste: I will hold them accountable for not giving us the flexibility. I commend them for cutting.

Mr. DiFrancesco: What we have to do is get the Federal and State officials to acknowledge the fact that they are not the center of all wisdom in the universe. Quite honestly they don't know how to provide these services. I agree with Jeff and that is they have to give us more flexibility and if they did we could spend more time focusing on things like family group conferencing and try to keep kids out of the more expensive scenarios that play down the road. We could expand that program to the aging population and other populations. That is why I want to commend Congressman Holden, once again, for advocating for us and getting a $300,000 check to expand services like that. There is no question that it is not a matter of more dollars, it is a question of flexibility. The bottom line is the reason we don't get local tax reform is because our officials elected to represent us don't trust us. So, they sit up there and make foolish moves like even discussing a special election to bring about local tax reform. Their only answer, most of the time, is to spend more dollars. They have no clue on how to make the system work. We do. They need to start trusting us. It is a partnership and they need to start trusting us because if they did the biggest beneficiaries of that trust would be the taxpayers, the property owners of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Until they are willing to accept the fact that wisdom is not centered in the State Capital, wisdom is centered out among the people who represent the folks in the individual counties. Each county has a different economy, each county has a different set of problems it is addressing, but State legislature cannot handle that burden nor can the Federal Congress. They have to be able to send that money down line and allow us to craft the program. We have great professionals in all of our offices. They know how to do their job. They are the ones that should be making the decision on how to best spend that money to make sure that the more expensive options don't have to be used. For what we are going to accomplish today, that is it.

Mr. Hartwick: Just take a look at the regulatory requirements that are imposed on children and youth services about a master, there are about 20 different regulations that are now being imposed that will cost us more money, not give us more flexibility and they are reducing the money that we are receiving. That formula is for disaster.

Mr. Haste: Go to the Prison where they are putting more and more regulations and there is no money to begin with. I hear what you are saying about the dollars, but the bigger issue is the flexibility than it is the dollars. I commend them for cutting spending. They should also cut the regulations.

Mr. DiFrancesco: The tax burden that the people in Pennsylvania pay.

Mr. Haste: That's the problem that every school district has.

Mr. Hartwick: No child left behind and they didn't fund it. That is the problem with school districts. Regulations and no funding, that is exactly what is happening to counties and taxpayers and there is not any opportunity for us to be able to change our flexibility and its continued cuts. That is what I see coming down the road. They want to legislate to us exactly what requirements we need to have and pay for. I agree with your philosophy. I just don't see it moving in that direction. I see it moving in the opposite direction.

Mr. Haste: That will occur quicker than the taxpayers wanting to take more out of their pockets. May be the taxpayers will start to help us out in the process.

Mr. Hartwick: They need to start with the Federal and State representatives.

Mr. Haste: We do have a busy agenda. We have a photo-op that we have to do for the Dauphin County Library. We do have a Retirement Board Meeting and then we have a press conference with the District Attorney. When we adjourn, we will take a 15 minute break and do the Library shoot and that should give us about 10 minutes where we can open up the Retirement Board Meeting and do a few quick things and then will take a 20 minute break and continue with the Retirement Board Meeting.

Mr. Haste: We do have two young gentlemen here today. The one is from the New York Institute of Technology who is doing a documentary on Commissioner Hartwick.

Mr. Hartwick: They were definitely not the reasons for my comments today.

Mr. Haste: The other gentleman is one of the funniest young men I have ever met. Phil Greene is a senior at Susquehanna Township High School. For those who don't know Phil, invite him to your house. He came over for some boring pizza parties and he would entertain us for hours. Phil just got his Eagle Award so welcome to the fraternity of Eagle Scouts.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

(There was none.)

ADJOURNMENT

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