DAUPHIN COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WORKSHOP MEETING
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2006 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; Guy Beneventano, Esq., Solicitor's Office; Bruce Foreman, Esq., Solicitor's Office; Fred Lighty, Esq., Solicitor's Office; Leila McAdoo, Solicitor's Office; Richie Martz, Commissioners' Office; Diane McNaughton, Press Secretary; Lena Martinez-Fure, Commissioners' Office; Randy Baratucci, Purchasing Director; Steve Sukniac, Juvenile Probation Director; Jeff Patton, Juvenile Probation; Warden DeRose, DCP; Tom Guenther, Information Technology Director; Elke Moyer, Human Services; Dave Schreiber, Personnel; Kay Sinner, Personnel; Faye Fisher, Personnel Director; Steve Howe, Tax Assessment/Claims Director; Dan Eisenhauer, MH/MR Administrator; Bob Hawley, Deputy Court Administrator; Kim Robison, Domestic Relations Director; Sandy Moore, Human Services Director; Greg Bush, Information Technology; Randy Thoman, Information Technology; Julia E. Nace, Assistant Chief Clerk; and Hector Ortis, Human Services

GUESTS PRESENT

Stephanie McCarl; Scott Seufert; Ray Mott; Tom Wojdtlak; Cater Nash; Kim Deitz; Paul Kreiser; Ken Gordon; Stephen Schlager; Ramona Thompson; Garry Lenton, Patriot News; Rev. Taylor; Cathi Alloway; Karen Culling

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 the November 1, 2006 Workshop Meeting Minutes that we'll take up at next week's meeting.

ELECTION BOARD

A complete copy of the Election Board Meeting Minutes is on file in the Commissioners' Office.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: We are at the point in time of the Meeting for public participation. Is there anyone from the audience that would like to address the Board? Please come forward.

Ms. Weedon: Good morning, Commissioners. My name is Sarah Weedon. I am on the Board of Directors of the Drug & Alcohol Commission. Recently I sent you a letter dated November 6th concerning my concerns of not being reappointed. I have not heard from you in response to that letter so I felt it necessary to come and address that with you today. The appointment was a reappointment. I've been on the Board for two years and I serve as Vice-Chairman of the Board and I'm also the Program Chair. I've also participated in many activities with the Board to ensure that drug and alcohol activities of the community are effective.

Commissioner Hartwick stated in the Patriot News on October 26, that I wasn't reappointed because it was his latest step in a plan of the Commissioners to populate the independent agency with people who have experience with substance abuse programs.

I provided to you in my letter of November 6 a long list of activities that I have been involved with in my career as the Executive Director of the Dauphin County Assistance Office and how I work diligently with the citizens of Dauphin County which a large amount included individuals with drug and alcohol addictions. I set up programs. I worked hand-in-hand with the Drug & Alcohol Commission. I was a caseworker with a caseload of drug and alcohol addicted individuals that I helped refer and get services. My letter went on and it is public record if you need to validate that.

The Board of Directors appointed me on December 4 because you had confidence in my abilities to fulfill the responsibilities of a board member. I have fulfilled those expectations. For the past two years, I have watched minorities being systemically removed from the Board of the Drug & Alcohol Commission. That's a fact! It can be proven. Facts have been distorted, lies being told about the failure of the Director in doing his job as the Director of the Dauphin County Executive Commission of Drug & Alcohol; and he is not providing appropriate services and the funds are not being utilized. Those, too, are distorted facts and lies which can be proven.

Over the past several weeks Commissioner Hartwick has taken an opportunity to misinform the public as to what he feels is mishandling of a grant by the Dauphin County Executive Commission on Drug & Alcohol. After the County failed two attempts to obtain this grant initially, the Commission was then asked to write the grant on their behalf and we did so. This was done and approved by the State. We assisted the County in getting this grant. The County put their signature on the grant as the recipient and the sole administrator and announced this grant to the public via a press conference in the Courthouse Lobby. These are facts. Commissioner Hartwick claims that the County was forced to return $620,000 because the Commission failed to hire a case manager to identify and treat this population. Now what this grant was all about was, it was a grant to provide services to first-time offenders that were going into the judicial system. It was the responsibility of the criminal justice system to identify these non-violent offenders to the program. A case manager was not hired by the Commission due to the low number of referrals from the criminal justice system. Not once did they call the Commission on Drug & Alcohol and say, you need a case manager because we can't make referrals. The Commission utilized the staff they had for the low turnover of referrals that were received. Commissioner Hartwick is misleading the public. The County has never returned $620,000 to the State. These monies are based on reimbursement of funds for treatment and the State has assured the County that the dollars are still available for the program. The bottom line is the County was the sole administrator of the grant and as such it was the County's responsibility that an issue of lack of serving this underserved population lies with the County not the Commission on Drug & Alcohol. As I said before, the Dauphin County Commission Board used to be racially balanced and represented the County in a racial, social and economic dynamics. Currently there is a racial division as three of the African-American members were booted out even if they were eligible for another term of reinstatement. The other non-African American member who was asked to leave because she spoke out her mind against the County and her reappointment was not made. Again, Commissioner Hartwick has tried to claim that the Executive Director has mismanaged funds as they relate to the Tobacco Control Program. The public would be interested to know that on several face-to-face conversations with him, he stated he did not like the DCD&A Commission, the work that they were doing because he was not in the event of the radio and TV counter marketing advertisement. As I told you with the PCCD Grant, this grant was never mishandled by the Commission on Drugs & Alcohol. As for the false statements made by Commissioner Hartwick that the D&A Commission did not provide care for the needs of children in Dauphin County as much stated in local television; however, the fact is the Commission has expanded to student assistant programs in schools and instituted partnerships and liaisons with the mental health counterparts for more effective services. The Commission has provided prevention and intervention services to children and their parents in order that they may not be statistics in the Dauphin County Children & Youth and Juvenile Probation Systems. In addition, the Drug & Alcohol Commission has provided 1,989 participants in reoccurring services, evidence and base programs alone. The Commission has been instrumental in reducing the child tobacco buy rate by 22% from 9%. The Commission's concern for the child is so great that when the child is in the womb of a pregnant addicted mother she is our first priority. Furthermore on that issue, I would like to state that the majority of the children in the Dauphin County area are covered by the access card of private insurance which they must then go through Behavioral Health for their insurance carrier.

We are a volunteer organization. You have to volunteer to come to us. Because of the way the law is set up and the rules, they have to go through their own private health care so that is another reason that we don't have as many children involved with the Drug & Alcohol Commission because they are going through other carriers. To further tie the hands of the Drug & Alcohol Commission, Dauphin County Commissioners elected to remove the Executive Director from being the County's Drug & Alcohol Health Choice representative on the Health Choice Executive Board. The five county partnerships Health Choices Executive Board is made up of the Mental Health Administrators and Drug & Alcohol Administrators except in Dauphin County only because of our 501C3 status. This duty and representation is performed by the Dauphin County Human Service Director that has very little knowledge or experience on issue that confront and greatly cripples the drug and alcohol effectiveness in the Dauphin County Substance Abuse of Drug & Alcohol Health Choices.

There is also a conflict. People from the County have been placed on the Dauphin County Drug & Alcohol Commission Board that work for the County, one in direct conflict because they are pursuing funds from the Drug & Alcohol Commission.

I would like to say that later today the Director of Human Services, Sandy Moore, will be talking about Single County Authority which is what Drug & Alcohol Commissions are across the State. She will give you models of those that she thinks are good. She will not point out to you the fact that Jeannine Peterson, who is the CEO for Hamilton Health Center, and also was the Deputy Secretary of Health, said that Dauphin County Drug & Alcohol Commission was one of the best in the State of Pennsylvania. That will not be told to you. None of the positives that have been going on with the Drug & Alcohol Commission through the County will be pointed out; none of the advertisement; none of the services; and none of the things that had been done to help those with addiction. Smittie Brown has done an excellent job. He continues to do that.

In closing, I wonder what is Commissioner Hartwick's agenda for this. I understand and I said in my letter and I'll say it publicly, I think this is a modern day bashing of Smittie Brown. I think that they have no evidence of any kind to state the things that they have been saying. They have been lying. I would request that you reconsider your direction in this matter, help influence Commissioner Hartwick to make better decisions, and understand all of the facts before he speaks presently to the press or the public.

I am also asking you once again to respond to my letter that I sent to you and request that you provide me the ability to continue to do the work that I have been doing and restore the Dauphin County Commission on Drug & Alcohol's Board to what it should be, a reflection of the community and help those that need the help. Thank you.

Mr. Haste: Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to address the Board at this time? (There was none.) If not, I'll call upon Commissioner DiFrancesco for a presentation.

DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS/GUESTS

1. Commissioners
   1. Presentation of Adoption Month Proclamation
      Attendees: C&Y staff ,Elizabeth Tobin, Jenna Shickley, Currin Haines, Kathryn Hiner; Adrienne Franchi, Michelle Rice, Christine Tirendi, Thad Zarkovich, Porscha Bruner, Colleen Clinton, Melissa Richardson, Melissa Gingerich, Lindsey Miller, Christine Thierwechter, Melissa Thomas, Zachary Wagner, Melissa Chambers, Matthew Terpstra, Michael Beckstein, Jason McCrea, Marilyn Sutton, Jessica Leech, Lisa Pilsitz; Hector Ortiz; Mr. & Mrs. Stubbs; Mr. & Mrs. Polson; Kim Dieter, Diakon/Statewide

Mr. DiFrancesco: I have the opportunity today to highlight a number of very, very special people. I know and I'm assuming that part of the reason our room is very crowded today is because there are a number of those special families with us today. I would like to begin simply by reading the proclamation and then offer some comments afterwards.

Office of County Commissioner
Dauphin County, Pennsylvania

Proclamation

We, the Dauphin County Board of Commissioners, are delighted to join communities across the nation in raising awareness about adoption, honoring adoptive families and spotlighting the children who are in need of a loving, permanent home;

Whereas, every child deserves a loving, nurturing, and permanent family, but sadly, many abused and neglected children in the county's care have never known such a warm, welcoming home, and are longing for one;

Whereas, in Dauphin County, more than 30 children are currently in need of a home and are awaiting that permanent family to love them faithfully and care for them forever;

Whereas, these children come from all different backgrounds; many have special needs because of physical, mental, or emotional disabilities, or because they must be placed with other siblings or are of school-age;

Whereas, these children need extra patience and support to help them overcome previous hardships and profound heartaches, but Dauphin County is working hard to prove that every child is worthy of love and able to be adopted;

Whereas, adoption has changed significantly over the years, with adoptive parents no longer required to be a homeowner, or of a certain age, marital status or socioeconomic status; more important than wealth or residence is a commitment to love unconditionally a child who has never known such unselfish, self-sacrificing love;

Therefore, we are truly grateful for all the families who have opened their hearts and their homes to less fortunate children, and in recognition of their around-the-clock efforts and the many children still desperately in need of a home, we do hereby proclaim November 2006 to be "Adoption Month" in Dauphin County.

I say it time and time again what we do is help people in crisis and unfortunately some of the side issues that come along with this job is identifying the tremendous need in the community and to actually see the lives of people who are not as fortunate as others in the community. I was lucky. I grew up in a household with strong family ties, good parents and I can say that not everybody is in that same position. The fact of the matter is that where there are children in need there are people who feel the calling and have the heart to reach out and get involved in a situation that certainly may provide conflict in their life. But they are willing to do it because you know what, children deserve it. Children do not deserve to grow up as this proclamation speaks of in an area where they just don't have that family support structure. It is easy for us to sit up here and assume that parents love their children but we all know especially us that work in the field that it is not that simple. There are a lot of issues that create problems in families. There are a lot of parents who love their children dearly but don't have the capacity to care for them. So with that today, this is a special day and a special honor. I want to thank the many people in this room who are part of the County network looking out for these children, but also the family members that we have here who have opened up their homes to take care of these children in their time of need. I would ask that everybody in the room join me in celebrating "Adoptive Family Day" and say thank you to the people in this room who get involved in these issues every day.

Mr. Haste: I too, like Nick, was fortunate to grow up in a strong family setting. When Nick was talking about strong parents, I was thinking, I had strong parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Everybody felt the need at some point in time to meet my derriere. Maybe I needed that, maybe that is why I had so many. When Nick was talking, I was thinking, there are probably two things that people do that are probably the greatest gifts that you can give. One is an organ donation, someone who continues the life of someone still living I think is a great gift. The second is when someone opens up their family and they love someone who is not their own to start out with. Having three children of my own, I know the joy of raising children and having childbirth but to have that special ability of someone to be able to do that again. Someone that starts out not as their own but who is willing to open their family and open up their heart and make them their own is a special gift and I think today we want to commend those folks for doing that.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I would like to call forward the following, Children & Youth staff, Diakon Statewide Adoptive Network, and also some families with us. I would like all in mass as best as possible come up to the flag area and we'll make a presentation of the certificate. (The Certificate was presented, applause and pictures were taken).

1. Ray Mott, Board Member of the Boys & Girls Club of America
   1. Plaque presentation to the Commissioners

Mr. Haste: Ray would you please come forward?

Mr. Schlager: Thank you for letting us speak to you today. My name is Steve Schlager. I'm the President for the Board of Directors for the Boys & Girls Club here in Central Pennsylvania. On my left is Tom Wojdtlak and on my right Ray Mott, who are also Board members.

We are actually here today to thank you for helping us. You put together an event this year that raised about $45,000 for charity of which we were a major recipient. We would like to present to you today the Helping Hand Award. I'll read to you just a brief synopsis on the award itself. It says, "To the Dauphin County Commissioners from the Boys and Girls Club of Central Pennsylvania in appreciation of your generous commitment to the guiding principles of the Boys and Girls Club movement and for your belief that a Helping Hand can make a positive difference in the lives of young people, our community and our Club."

On a personal note, this year has been a struggle for us at the Boys & Girls Club. We're a little behind in certain things around building development and we're in the midst of a campaign to try to garner funds to give our staff raises who serve the underprivileged kids in our area and also to rebuild roofs, etc. The money that you donated to us or helped to garner for us through your event has gone a long way in helping us in that regard. For that, we would like to thank you and present this plaque to you today.

Mr. Haste: I think we need to acknowledge the Administrative staff at the Prison and Ray for the diligent work on this golf outing. Many folks knew that we were donating those funds elsewhere this year and when we had announced that it was going to the Boys & Girls Club the response was tremendous. Not only to the staff but to the community that responded very well in this need. Those folks need to be thanked as well.

Mr. Schlager: Thank you. (The plaque was presented to the Commissioners and pictures taken.)

Mr. Haste: Karen & Cathi would you please come forward?

1. Karen Cullings, Community Relations Director & Cathi Alloway, Public Services Director, Dauphin County Library System
   1. Update of the Dauphin County Library System.

Ms. Alloway: Good Morning, I'm Cathi Alloway and this is Karen Cullings from the Dauphin County Library System. We're here today to give you a brief report on the library's successes this year in 2006. I would like to present them in a David Letterman style a top ten list for the past twelve months perhaps not as funny but impressive in the range of people that we have served.

Item #10 is that this summer we inaugurated the Ask Here PA reference service which is a statewide endeavor. Basically, you can log on to our website and get a fast answer to almost any question. This occurs on line and the internet resources and other data bases and we always promise an answer online in fifteen minutes or less. If it involves a little bit longer research, we'll get back to you.

Item #9 with the introduction this month of our eAudiobooks service, this is a new product that we launched with the Cumberland and Perry County Public Libraries. If you are a cardholder of the Dauphin County Library System you can log onto our website and download a wide range of audio books on your home computer and then you can transfer them to your MP3 player and listen to them in your car, as you're jogging or whatever. We would love to encourage our residents to explore this. The collection also includes a very expensive resource if you were to buy it on your own. We have the foreign language educational materials for almost every language under the sun including Croatian and various Chinese dialects. We also have the E audio books to help people who do not speak English learn English regardless of their home language. So if you speak Arabic or Spanish or Croatian then you can use those same materials to learn how to speak English. It is a wonderful resource.

Item #8 we received grants from Verizon to provide early start computers for young children at the East Shore Branch. Also, we have two broad band fiber optic demo computers at the East Shore Area Library which allow people to download things like the eAudiobooks at lightening speed.

Item #7, this year we really stepped up our service to County educators. We have a school services department now with a full-time person employed and her job is to make those bridges to the school districts and learn how we can better serve the students and the facility. So we started a Library eNewsletter for educators. In August, we had the first annual teachers' workshop. It attracted 115 people. All of the county's school districts were represented and most of the county's private schools. The subject was Connecting Boys with Works. It was a big hit. This was on how to get reluctant readers to read. We are really glad that we can provide these services to the school districts.

Item #6, has to do with generating excitement about reading. I want to thank each of you for earlier this year posing for the Get Caught Reading posters. You're very photogenic. The posters were great conversation starters in the libraries. In the Fall we had our one book celebration again where we get the communities in a number of counties in the area reading the same book. This year the book is called "The Kite Runner" which has really sparked reading and discussion on Afghanistan, the novelties of loyalty, betrayal and redemption. Anything that we can do to get people excited about reading, we're very happy to participate in.

Item #5, in Spring we conducted job hunting workshops. We are very, very committed to contributing to people's personal growth and we think that efforts like this also contribute to the economic growth of the region.

Item #4, is the East Shore Area Library which is our largest library located in Lower Paxton Township by the Colonial Park Mall. We were finally able to restore their Friday hours. In 2003 when the statewide budget cuts occurred, every one of our libraries had to close their doors for one day a week. This was a particular hardship for the East Shore which is our largest facility and has the most computers. Since we restored those Friday hours, visits to that library are up 4% and the computer use has gone up by a third especially due to the weekend opening of the Gates Foundation Funded Computer Lab on the lower level.

Item #3, exterior renovations to the Historic Harrisburg Downtown Branch have been completed including repair and restoration of the historic slate tile roof. That is not something that most people can see unless they are in the hospital helicopter. The slate tiles were a very unique part of the library facility and we were able to locate the company that originally made those tiles. They were able to repair or restore many of them as opposed to having to go out and make all these new tiles. It was really, really a neat thing to have happen. Next we will begin the interior renovations to that branch.

Item #2, which is something that is a little more invisible to the public but we migrated to a new software package called Horizon. Basically what it means for the public is that online card catalog now looks like Amazon.com which is the industry standard. You can see book jacket covers, you can see book reviews and there is easy account management. We also now have links to county government offices. So if you type in dog licenses into the card catalog, it provides the county department that has that information. You click on and you get taken to the information that you need.

Last but not least, item #1, is the opening of the Madaline L. Olewine Branch on September 6th. This is our new facility on Third and Seneca Street. It is drawing huge crowds from the neighborhood including the people who work at the nearby Pinnacle Health Office which was the former Polyclinic complex. Registrations and checkouts have doubled there. It is absolutely amazing. We are going to have to add staff to the facility. Many young people are coming in after school to use the homework resources and computers. On Wednesday, our Board to Reprogram is having special parenting events to draw people from the neighborhood. We are really, really proud of our new uptown facility and grateful for the positive community response.

So with the top ten list completed, I'll hand this over to Karen.

Mr. Haste: Do you still have your Friday coffee and donuts?

Ms. Alloway: Oh yes.

Mr. Haste: I keep hearing about those guys.

Ms. Cullings: Thank you very much and Rich apologizes to you. He asked me to come and talk to you about what we are planning for the future now that you heard what happened in 2006.

The numbers that you were hearing about the Madaline Olewine Library we expect to duplicate those kind of results when we build a replacement library in Hummelstown which is the next project in the realm of projects that you are well aware of and part of the original six that we had the $2 million capital campaign for and that you assisted us in getting the $2.3 million from the state capitol budget.

We expect to launch a public capital campaign in support of the Hummelstown project next year to get that project underway either the end of next year or the beginning of 2008. It will be a much bigger library than what is there now. They have been working for many years with very, very tight quarters and a handicap inaccessible building. I imagine we're going to have if not the same kind of response probably even bigger in Hummelstown.

The remaining project from these would be the expanded parking at the main library which continues to be an issue. We're also in the process of a strategic planning process a follow-up to the one that brought us those six projects. We're starting over again. We're developing a process that is dynamic rather than having to start over again every three or every five years. We're trying to develop a process where it is continuing and put a continuing change based on feedback that we get from the staff and community about library needs. We will be conducting a public survey (phone survey) I think the beginning of next year of county residents to determine from them what their biggest priorities are in terms of library service. We're also considering a web survey hoping to get more teen feedback because that is a group that we know we need to serve and probably aren't serving at the level that we would like. So that will be going on at the beginning of the year. We're also going to do some benchmarking where we will compare ourselves to similar library systems with similar income levels serving similar sized populations and see how we are doing in terms of certain key measures that we look at levels of borrowing and how many cardholders that we have and how many public use computers that we have; all those types of things. That will all be done as part of the strategic planning process. Part of that will also be to come back to you the first quarter of next year and give you a progress report. If you remember when we made the request for consideration of increase in library funding, we had certain key initiatives in there that we wanted to achieve. Of course, some of that was somewhat compromised by the state budget cuts but in many areas, we have made progress and despite that. So we want to come back to you and give you a progress report on those areas. We're not asking for any budget consideration or anything in 2007 but wanted to give you a progress report. In 2008 we'll probably have a whole new plan for you to look at and may at that time ask you for some budgetary consideration.

That is probably why Rich isn't here today because he wanted me to say that (joking). That's all I have.

Mr. Haste: Tell Rich the next time we see him, we'll be ducking him. How is the Lykens Branch doing?

Ms. Alloway: That is still on a climb upward. Usually the first year after you open a facility there is this typical surge but their circulation for the year has also double digits. They are drawing a lot of people from Williams Valley and the very extremes of the county and including some Schuylkill County people. I do want to remind you that non-county residents who use our libraries, we do get reimbursed for service to them through the statewide library card program. The Schuylkill County Libraries are rather weak so they are coming into Lykens and taking advantage of that. It is a good asset in that part of the County.

Mr. Haste: That is a good way to get additional revenue in that I don't think you were planning on.

Ms. Alloway: Yes, it is.

Mr. Haste: Have we tried to expand that at all? I've heard but I want to hear it from you that our library up there is better than what they get. I was wondering if we didn't publicize it a little bit more if we wouldn't get more of those folks coming in.

Ms. Alloway: Actually, I don't think that we would want to promote it because what we get compensated by the State doesn't cover our expenses to serve them. I know they have ongoing efforts to recruit some of these people to be members of their friends group which is separate from the library. They are a fundraising and volunteer group. They are not always successful at doing that but I would be cautious about really promoting this to people in Schuylkill County because again the State does not cover our true costs.

Mr. Haste: Okay, thank you.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I look back about four years before even coming into office. I sat down and met with Rich and in our original discussion, I told him at that time if I was able I wanted to get the oversight of the library system. He looked at me and made some comments and we still talk about this, generally speaking the library system usually went to the minority commissioner. He was surprised that a majority commissioner would indicate that he wants it. In light of this morning, I give you my top five reasons why I wanted it and why I continue to want it. I put this first one in the fifth position because if I put it any higher I would be showing true arrogance I have to tell you having your picture taken for the "Get Caught Reading Program" was a lot of fun. #4, cutting the ribbon on the new branch, that also was a lot of fun. #3, is having the opportunity to read the Dad's Program on Saturday mornings. #2, would be another opportunity given to children during the week with different programs and actually getting out there and having kids climb all over you is a wonderful thing. I can't begin to tell you how great an experience that is. #1 reason why I still enjoy being the oversight of the library it is making certain that in Dauphin County everyone has access to books for parents to read to kids, or adults with computers to go out and find out about jobs to allow people in our community to expand their horizon much further than they may be able to. There is no question in my mind that a strong library system is a very valuable thing to this community. You guys do a great job restoring that system. I want to thank you for the work that you do so hard every day.

Ms. Alloway: I would like to add a personal note. Last year I served as President of the Central Pennsylvania Library Association and I went throughout the Commonwealth visiting libraries, etc. I also do some consulting work with libraries in Maryland and New Jersey. I have not been in a library that had the kind of support from the elected officials like we get from the three of you. You take the time to find out about what we are doing, you care, and you come to our events. I'm actually appalled that in some other counties especially the ones out of state where the commissioners are very out of touch with what their own department does. In some of these cases, the libraries as a department of the county and the employees are county employees, you guys get it. I want to tell you how much we appreciate it, too. It makes it easier for us to do our job. Thank you so much.

Mr. Haste: I'm interested in the eAudiobooks, I don't even have an MP3 player but I'm going to find one now. I don't know how to work it but I'll figure it out.

Ms. Alloway: Yes, it is a very, very nice thing.

Mr. Haste: I spend time by myself out in the woods and I've often wondered about reading books while I was doing that. I really didn't want to but this is a great way to do it. I hope to read a couple of books while I'm doing something else.

Ms. Alloway: I'm impressed.

Mr. Haste: I'm going to find out how to do that before I go.

Ms. Alloway: Check the website because it recommends that certain MP3 players work better with this service than with others or call us.

Mr. Haste: Do I need a certain size?

Ms. Alloway: One gig will do it. I think even a 512, one to two books will fit onto it but if you get a one gig, you could put seven books on it.

Mr. Haste: Thank you. Sandy and Fred, please come forward.

1. Sandy Moore, Human Services Director and Fred Lighty, Esq.
   1. Presentation of Drug & Alcohol Program Models.

Ms. Moore: At the Board's request we are here to talk about possible options for drugs and alcohol services for the County. We have Fred here to talk about the four legal options that we have and then I'm going to talk slightly about the pros and cons of each of them and what I suggest that the Board consider.

Mr. Lighty: The Pennsylvania Drug and Abuse Act of 1972 that is with the Pennsylvania Department of Health with the authority and responsibility to establish the County Based Drug & Alcohol Treatment Program. The regulations promulgated pursuant to that statute gave county Commissioners four options for how they wanted to organize their SCA. SCA stands for Single County Authority. That is what the state has chosen to call each of the County's Drug & Alcohol Programs.

You have four options when it comes to how you want to handle Dauphin's County MPA. The first option is to do nothing, don't participate at all. In which case the Department of Health will contract directly with an entity here in the County to be your SCA. The last time I checked most counties did not do that. There was only a handful of counties that chose that option.

Mr. Hartwick: Go to the next one.

Mr. Lightly: The other three options are referred to as models. The first model is called Executive Commission Private. That is the model that we have now. That is where a private not-for-profit corporation is established. Your Board gets to appoint the Board of Directors of that corporation and that corporation serves as you SCA. That corporation gets all of its money from the County by a contract. An important foot-note is that the current contract that we have with them expires at the end of 2007. The next model available is called an Executive Commission Public. This is for all intents and purposes a county department. The Director of this agency is the same as the director of any of your other human service agencies. All the employees are county employees.

Mr. Haste: That is what we used to have.

Mr. Lightly: Correct. The other model available to you is called a Planning Council Model. It is a county sub-department for lack of a better description. It is placed under the direction of the MH/MR Director. The thought being there is that there could be some issues between folks with mental health issues and addiction issues.

That is in a nutshell the four models that are available to you.

Ms. Moore: Obviously the model that we have now has been a struggle. I've been Human Services Director for two years and I've spent an incredible amount of energy into this and continue to be disappointed with the outcomes that we have. We do not recommend that we continue with that model. The idea of the state running our local drug and alcohol services, also I would not recommend it. We feel the services should be contracted. The idea of having it under our mental health department is one contract to consider however with all different services currently under mental health, how much their budget is, the different priorities and the magnitude of the changes that organization is experiencing right now both in mental health and mental retardation and the significance of drug and alcohol issues, I think the drug and alcohol issues desire to be their own department and getting their own attention. As the Human Services Director, my recommendation is going to be to get back to the County under the public. Have it be its own department, with its own Director. But there are steps we need to take to make that happen including notification of a variety of folks including a public vote from the Board of Commissioners, including looking at funding levels and those kind of things are already happening in my department, the Human Services Director's Office.

Mr. Haste: In 2004, I suggested this.

Mr. Hartwick: I want to take a recap because I know there was some discussion on it. In some cases privatization may be an option in government if you take a look at expenses, efficiencies, whether or not it can be contracted out. As it relates to Health & Human Services, privatization of this Executive Commission on Drugs & Alcohol was a mistake clearly based on nothing but outcomes and performance. I got another letter here that I received from someone who has been trying to cut through the red tape in order to get somebody with mental issues and drug and alcohol issues into treatment. Let it be known it is no mistake that this is not about anything but trying to get people the help that they deserve and is available to them. We want to figure out a way to make sure that we also have the drug and alcohol department. In Human Services we do have a system that needs to work in collaboration with each other and all other parts of the system from mental health/mental retardation to children & youth services. We need to make sure in all of those cases, juvenile probation and the prison system that we have the drugs and alcohol component as an active participant in all of the services. This has been extremely difficult. We as leaders of the county are not going to settle for anything less. No longer will we be giving money back. No longer will we be in a position of inefficiency. I've tried to work with this current model. I have great respect for the people on the Board. We need to make sure it is a county run department and they are required and obligated to accept the responsibility that this Board has placed upon them. We want to make sure that happens. All of us have been affected in one way or another, directly or indirectly with drug and alcohol issues. If we don't get people on the right track we'll see people in and out of the criminal justice system continuously. We need solutions. The number one reason is because of drug and alcohol related offenses. The second one is mental health issues. We need to look seriously at alternatives. We understand it is a much bigger utilization of resources trying to treat people in and out of prison. We are not going to rely on anyone else any more. This is not personal. This is all based on performance. It is not based upon personalities. We want to base it on performance and we want to see people in need of treatment get the help that they need. We are not going to stop at anything else but making sure that is done.

Mr. DiFrancesco: One of the reasons that I ran for the job, I came here with great concern about drug and alcohol specifically for youth. What our young people were experiencing in the community, the drugs and how terrible it was. The fact that in this modern age for some reason some parents think it is okay for their kids to drink because everybody drinks when they are in high school, etc. I have a fundamental problem with that. Upon getting here and realizing the way the system was set up and I have a concern about things I can't control directly. It was back in 2004 also when I said that we should have made this change. We should have served notice based on the way the law is written and the amount of time it takes for the shift to change. I think it is a two year process or something along those lines. In 2004 a majority of the Board did want to go ahead and make the change. But the fact of the matter is the way the system is set up the complications it seemed like the right strategy at the time was to improve the selection process for Board members. Actually put the interview process in place so that we could find out what these people are thinking, whether or not they share the Board's vision because at the end of the day they are a service provider for Dauphin County whether they are independent or not. With that process, we said look if we can get some people on the Board and change the Board of Directors to the point where they see what the priorities are and they are willing to go after it we can make the change and we don't have to go through this complicated extensive process. While it is three years later and by every statistical category that I'm aware of they have failed miserably and they continue to make bad decisions. The bottom line is, you want to talk about why I'm motivated on this issue and why I want to see a model change as quickly as possible, when I have parents sitting in my office who lost their 23 year old daughter to a heroine addiction, they tell the amount of money that they wasted because they couldn't find good information on programs that would be above board because they couldn't get information when their daughter came to them and said, help me I want to get out of this. They go online and they can't find information about support services for parents. We have an organization that basically spends, I don't know the exact figure, but I'm assuming it is well over $100,000 in advertising costs and if you go out on the street and talk to people, most of them have no idea what it is. We talked about the advertising campaign that the Commission uses and now half of the time when you see the advertisement you can't tell what the organization is. So if there are some successes that they have experienced, I would like to see those statistics because I'm not aware of them. Everything that I have seen has been a miserable failure and I see people lose children because of the lack of support because we don't have a coordinated effort in this county to fight a war on drugs that is not some arbitrary legalistic battle, a battle that supports parents when kids are making bad choices; it puts support in the hands of the people that are begging for help. The job is not getting done in Dauphin County. The model is the reason the job is not getting done. We haven't even begun to talk about the number of times that this Board of Commissioners had requested specific information from the Commission and the Commission refused to give it to us. So for anybody to come into this room, sit here and say this Board isn't doing anything but try to serve this community and do it in a much better fashion than it has been done in the past that person is sadly, sadly mistaken. This Board will not settle for anything but a system in place to provide services for people in need. We're tired of sitting back. I'm tired of having someone sit in front of me and blame everybody else for their failure. That's what happened about two weeks ago at our meeting. If this is your bread and butter, if this is what you do for a living, then you better be the person with the initiative and the insight to do it well in this community. To sit back and say that it is everybody else's fault because the program didn't work, because money was turned back, resign. It would be the right thing to do. It would be the honorable thing to do. But don't sit here and blame everybody else in the system when you should be driving these things. I think I have expressed my very strong support for a model change. The time has come and it has to happen as quickly as possible.

Mr. Haste: I found it ironic that a former Board member sat here this morning and basically blamed everybody else and said it wasn't their fault that no one called them.

Mr. DiFrancesco: And that goes exactly right to it.

Mr. Haste: I sat here and thought, you know what, they still don't get it. We have sat here, I don't know how many times, and said their department should be proactive. All you need to do is pick up the newspaper and read it and see what is going on and that ought to cause some action. The only action that I have seen from them is to increase TV ads and do more at the Senator's games. We need to have someone that we're entrusting to put together a plan to deal with the strategy of dealing with the drug and alcohol problems we have in our county and for their answer to be, no one called us, is just pathetic. Again, I think that sums it up. Dan will you please come forward?

1. Dan Eisenhauer, MH/MR Director
   1. Presentation of a Blue Print on Homelessness.

Mr. Eisenhauer: I am here today not necessarily in the role as MH/MR Administrator but actually as part of the CACH Coordinating Committee. CACH stands for Capital Area Coalition on Homelessness. It is a planning body of essentially volunteers from service providers and our homelessness infrastructure in Dauphin County who helped organize the efforts to address homelessness in our community. One of the biggest things that we do is submit an annual application to HUD with the cooperation of the City of Harrisburg that brings in annually about $1 million of funding for homeless services in Dauphin County. HUD recently suggested/demanded that the communities that participate in the Continuum Care Application process should have a Strategic Plan that addresses homelessness in each of our communities. So we are here today with Ed Trask from Delta and Carter Nash from Downtown Daily Bread to present Dauphin County's response to HUD's requirement to have a ten year strategic plan to end homelessness in our community. I'm going to ask Ed and Carter who were the co-chairs of our writing committee to present the Home Run to you.

Mr. Trask: We should be aware that the homeless system actually came into being or beginning to be created as hard as it is to believe in the early 80's. Most of the programs now are either shelters or long term transitional programs like mine that were literally created from about 1982 on. Before that, it was the Bethesda Mission and there was the Wise Emergency Shelter and the domestic violence shelter. That was it. That was all there was. It is hard to believe that but that's reality. I was here then. I was the first director of the health program and actually participated during the 80's in the creation of a great number of the Shalom. I met with Patty Swartz of the YMCA and we're looking here on Third Street at metal studs and say what are we going to do with this space and I said we need more transitional housing and they created a bridge housing program. Evergreen House that used to be a shelter now is a drug program (halfway house). That was originally a transitional housing program created by Catholic Charities. Interfaith upon the grounds of the State Hospital, actually that was one of the few that was publicly created. The County was involved with that. Ralph Moyer was here and that was created as a cooperative project for the County and Catholic Charities. All that happened during the 80's or the very early 90's. Then in the 90's we all began to work together more because everyone of those programs created was going to end homelessness. They even had it in their articles of incorporation. We are going to end homelessness. It was a nice thought but not much in the way of reality. They had to work together in the 90's and there has been a great interface over the years between the private agencies, usually faith-based created by the way. Shalom was created by nuns by Market Street who lived there. Most of those programs were created out of the faith-based community. By the mid 80's and on there was great interface with the County. The County agencies and the private agencies worked for homelessness together. There were a number of ways that they got together but the first one where it was really significant was the Pesch Program which actually happened at the Delta Community. We used to have 30-35 people from mental health, from drug & alcohol and different agencies, Children & Youth, as well as the shelters that would meet together to talk about issues of serving the homeless. That went into CACH. CACH was created because we were losing literally millions of dollars a year in this community. For two or three years we were not funded by HUD because we did not have a continuum of care organization. With the help of the County and the City of Harrisburg, the Harrisburg Foundation, the United Way wasn't involved yet, there were about forty agencies involved. We met in the old Human Services Building and the big room was full, in June of 2000 we created CACH. Then we created the successful application to HUD and began to more intensely work together. That has been true since the year 2000. The County has been very significant. Dan has been highly involved in that and some other County Human Service people, as well as, the City of Harrisburg. Brian Davis who is with the City of Harrisburg is now the Chair of that. Prior to that Tim Whelan was our Chair with the United Way. The first Chair was Janice Black of the Harrisburg Foundation. As Dan said, we now know that if we are going to be competitive for funding, we got to have a strategic plan. That is what we created, this ten year plan to end homelessness. This is a rough draft but it will be nicely printed once everybody has approved it. The plan for this started a year ago. Last December, we gathered 60 people up at HACC for a day and we identified major issues that needed to be addressed. This is a wide scope of people. Then we boiled it down into a strategic plan. I think Dan is going to go through it with you. Page 4 in this is the goal of strategic elements to be addressed. I tell you we already chose the Blue Print Managers. Choosing Blue Print Managers will be Tim Whelan. The CACH organization and Tim Whelan will be running this process for us. You have the HMIS System. This is terribly important to us. It is the first time we have ever been able to gather good data. You can't do anything unless you know who is homeless and what is happening to them. HMIS System helps us to track this. I have a computer in my office and we feed data into the system. That is happening. The crucial thing beyond that is the housing first. Nationally we know, if you're going to help somebody get out of homelessness and stay not homeless they got to have housing. You just can't leave them languish in a shelter. You got to get them into some place where they are going to be able to live. This is the housing first model. Frankly, it calls for more affordable housing in the community. You look at the action plan, we've got to deal with the issue of more affordable housing in the County. Housing Plus is really surrounding people with services. We know we need more partnerships especially with the private sector. We know there is not going to be a great deal of public money. We know we have to figure out how to use the money we have better but we also got to leverage more partnerships with the private sector. We'll be working on that. Finally and this ought to be first, we need to deal with prevention. You've talked about that with drug and alcohol and mental health. Better intervention earlier, when a family is in trouble let's get there earlier. You know the biggest user of family education services is the court system. I have a letter from Jeannie Turgeon on my desk right now endorsing the thing that I'm working on in terms of parenting. We're using up all the parenting services either through agency referral or the court system. We wait until somebody gets into trouble. It's a medical model, you're sick you go see the doctor. But we don't do enough in terms of prevention. We're going to be working hard on that. That is going to take cooperation of the private agencies along with the faith community and along with your agencies. We got to find a way to help families be stronger. I'm not just talking about intercity families. Anybody that is a teacher knows that I'm not talking about that. We got to find a way to strengthen the fabric of our community which is the families. That would go a long way to preventing homelessness, drug addiction, the whole issue.

We're here today to just ask you simply to endorse this. We are not asking you for money. You had appointed the committee of eighteen which is to discharge this duty and brought the document to you and we are asking you to endorse it. It is a ten year process. There are a lot of studies in here that need to be done. We're happy to come back and report to you our progress. In fact, we are setting our benchmarks and we'll be able to tell you if we are making progress or if we haven't made any. We are doing this at a difficult time because there are a number of factors. There are more things that will likely create more homelessness. We really got to try to get ahead of that.

Mr. Hartwick: Are you going to run through it?

Mr. Eisenhauer: It is up to the Commissioners but I thought it would be important to give you a little background. If you go to page three of the power point, the steering committee actually developed a vision. A vision statement that every family and individual in the County of Dauphin and the City of Harrisburg has access to safe, affordable housing and the skills and resources necessary to maintain life in that housing. I think it is also important to understand that we're talking about an overall strategy to deal with the threats of homelessness in our community. We are promoting what we call the formula for success which is that healthy families plus educational opportunities plus living wage employment and affordable and safe housing equal an end to homelessness. We're not so naive as to think that we can actually end homelessness but we do believe that we have to take the steps to alleviate the conditions that create homelessness.

Mr. Haste: This really doesn't have anything to do with the program, but why did you feel the need to say that every family and individual in the County of Dauphin and in the City of Harrisburg? Why couldn't you just say in Dauphin County?

Mr. Eisenhauer: We actually put that in to align our language with the Continuum of Care application that we co-submit with the City of Harrisburg to HUD. At the end of day, HUD and the Inter-Agency Council on Homelessness will also be reviewing the Blue Print. We wanted to keep our language consistent with the Continuum of Care application.

Mr. Haste: The reason I raise that is that a lot of the services that I see, people want to say is out of the County. We are all the same.

Mr. Eisenhauer: It was not our intent to segregate the entity as much..

Mr. Haste: When I read it, that is what I gathered from it. It's all the County. Just end it with in Dauphin County. The last time I looked they are in Dauphin County.

Mr. Eisenhauer: So noted. I think we can talk about making a change.

Mr. Haste: It just adds to the stigma we've had in the past.

Mr. DiFrancesco: It is a very sensitive issue with the Board because it is surprising how many people don't think the City is in the County.

Mr. Eisenhauer: As you see when we come to the end, City Council also reviews this document. Picking up where I left off, the other thing that I thought was important is that the Board of Commissioners understands who we are talking about when we talk about homelessness. On page five, we actually have identified three sorts of sets of people that we serve in the homeless community, transitionally homeless, episodic homeless, and chronic homeless. HUD's actual requirement is that we address chronic homeless in our strategic plan but we feel that it is important in the community to address all forms of homelessness including transitional homeless and episodic homeless who actually make up the largest number of people that we serve in our homeless system in Dauphin County. They use less shelter days than chronic but the number of people is a much larger population in transitional and episodic homeless.

Mr. Trask: Talk about the chronic, I was in the City last night for a meeting. It is the person who has no known place of residence and usually has a mental health problem and quite possibly an addiction and is sleeping under a bridge or along the river or someplace. We think that group in this community runs about 130-150. The reason we say that is that there has been a couple of actual efforts to go out and count them. We have a good group that works with them.

The other group the episodic homeless are people who are in and out of 30 day shelters. They might be there once a year in that shelter. They never get in my program but they have continuing efforts of the homelessness but they are not on the street. They are doubled up with somebody or they are able to hold a place for a while then their behavior tends to get them back in the same situation. They keep having episodes of homelessness. Transitionally homeless are more the persons I deal with who had maybe only one episode in their life but they spend a year or so getting their life together then they go on and never have another time that they are homeless. The point about this is it is different populations and they require different kinds of treatment. I can tell you though that at any given time we have between 500-600 human beings who are homeless in Dauphin County. About one-third of them are children if not more. Now that population is not the same 500-600, through the year it may change so it may have been as many as 2,000 or more that were homeless during a given year.

Mr. Hartwick: The amount of kids that are homeless in the Harrisburg School District is staggering.

Mr. Trask: It is a good illustration of reality. People don't realize it but the Harrisburg School District has their own Homeless Program. One of the problems of course is finding them and then keeping them in some kind of situation where they can be educated. They have to have a safe place to live.

Mr. Eisenhauer: The Strategic Plan is a way to address all those factors in one comprehensive plan and that is why we are seeking endorsement of our elected officials is that it would become the official strategic plan for the County of Dauphin in addressing homelessness over the next ten years.

Mr. Hartwick: These elected officials are willing to try to partner in addressing this. This is a great plan. I've never known you not to be creative. This is certainly a great starting point in addressing those issues. They are very important to me and important to this Board.

Mr. Haste: You have our blessing.

Mr. Eisenhauer: Thank you.

Mr. Haste: Steve.

1. Steve Howe, Tax Assessment/Claims Director; and Representatives from DEVNET
   1. Tax Assessment/Claim Issues.

Mr. Howe: Commissioners, as you all are aware of one of our department goals is to provide to the County and to the citizens of Dauphin County an effective tax administration and Tax Assessment program. Our former vendor that we had chosen to provide a lot of software solutions to us failed miserably in that particular effort which throws us into the process of us looking for another vendor to complete a software solution to manage tax assessment, tax administration, tax collection, tax billing, tax claims, all of the issues that affect greatly the revenue that we in Dauphin County collect as part of real estate tax. Not one of our favorite topics but a topic that we need to discuss and we need to manage. We have with us today one of the vendors who has put a lot of time and effort in qualifying as one of our prospective vendors and they want to at least provide to you a little bit of a demonstration as far as their efforts in converting a lot of our data. A lot of our resources that they would intend to throw at our project to get it completed on time. With us today is Michael Gentry. Michael is president of a company which is called DEVNET, Inc. I'm going to turn the program over to Michael. He has with him I believe three of the other owners of the company as well as what he would propose to do as the Dauphin County team to complete this particular project. Michael will introduce some of the folks he has with us and have a brief presentation for you. Then basically throw the program open to questions and answers from you folks which I'm sure you will have some about the company's capabilities and their commitment if they are selected as a vendor for this project.

Mr. Gentry: I'm Mike Gentry, President of DEVNET. I would like to introduce two of my partners, Jason Crome and Julie Hall and Vice-President Joe Hurley. Also with me today is the team that we propose to work and provide the software solution that we're hoping you will select. With me are Edit Peronja, team leader; Eduardo Ibarra, one of our programmers; Rachel Augustine, database specialist; and Deanna Schuldt, who is the software testing and client support specialist. These four individuals would be entirely responsible for providing the software solution and would have no other goals or functions until the solutions are provided. Your project would be entirely their focus. The company owns other resources that we could throw at the project and we intend to provide additional programmers as needed.

Our company was established in 1997 and based out of Illinois about 60 miles west of Chicago. The company was established by a group of software developers and former county officials. We felt there was a need for the kind of software that we do at the time. We started the company with one county. We now have 38 counties in Illinois and eight in Missouri that we do services for. We're used to modifying our software going to another state and to service large jurisdictions. We have a large number of accounts that are over 100,000 parcels that the software takes care of. We provide ongoing services to those clients on a yearly basis as they go through their tax cycle. The key people within the company are the owners of the company. All the owners are employed and are key managers of the company. So we have a vested interest in seeing that the company grows and is successful and that these large projects go well. Our company typically only takes on one large project like this at a time. If we are selected as your vendor, we're not going to be taking on other large projects, new states, large jurisdictions until the software is modified for your needs, it's done and you're satisfied with it. You would have the team available throughout the whole time.

What we had shown yesterday to the assessor's office, is we were given a lot of data a few weeks ago and what we have done is to kind of show you what we can do is convert the data into our software. So this is actual Dauphin County data. We have like 112,000 parcels that we converted with five years of history out there. This is our main software application. I want you to take note that the software is fully integrated which I know is an issue with your current solutions. You have all of the pieces in one place and are accessible from one place. You have your mass appraisal software component, your assessment, billing, collection, and tax claims all available in one interface. I won't go through to much of the software because we gave a large presentation to the office yesterday.

The software is very modular, very flexible design, and there is an integrated mass appraisal system. We are able to convert all of your sketches into a format that our software can use. We have been able to do some tests and able to convert all of your sketch data which is often an issue in converting from one appraisal system to another. A lot of times that data doesn't come through. Names came through, all your parcel numbers, legal descriptions, site addresses, all this information even amounts due to collect we were able to do as part of this conversion. We've also modified the software already without being selected to model your tax bill. We modified a number of the different screens. The property record card has been programmed as well. We just wanted to show you some of the things that we could do with the data that you have given us in a short amount of time. Just to give you some confidence that our staff can work with your data, make it fit into the system and that we can quickly make changes, customize your needs. The software has all the features that your company is going to need all the way from an appraisal system that can use a variety of different cost manuals, a variety of different market approaches for doing an analysis.

Our company is not a re-evaluation company. We have no interest in re-evaluation business. We're a software provider. The software you can use as a tool if and when there is a new re-evaluation for another outside service to use with the software or potentially even your own staff could go out and do the re-evaluation once you have the software. We support a number of different cost managers, Marshall & Swift where Marshall & Swift is the large appraisal company in the US and parts of the world. We are a Microsoft partner. We partner with a number of different companies that stand behind us while we are providing these software solutions. We also have a lot of GIS integration. That has become an issue with a lot of counties via a geographic information system. The software fully integrates with that and you can pull your maps into our software.

I would like to show you our web base interface. All the data can be made available on the web however how much you want or do not want to make available to the public on a subscriber basis or just put it out there on the web freely. We actually have a website running off of one of our servers: dauphin.devnetinc.com, that you can peruse at your leisure.

This is actual Dauphin County information that is out there. We even have some photographs of properties that your tax office gave us just so we could kind of build them into the system and show what it would look like. There are a couple pictures of residences, pictures of the sketch, all this information can be made available on the web if you chose to do so. There are additional options for it. Even tax collections on the web if that is something you wish to take a look at in the future. In addition to automating the offices, bring all the data together which you don't have currently all together in one spot in one data base. We can also on this framework provide services to the community to look into this data and have this data integrated with other things going on in the County.

Mr. Hartwick: Could you highlight what some of the other uses have been in other communities and allow us to take a look and take on different initiatives related to information if in fact we move forward with this software? How would we advertise that or make the push to make it available to the community and the residents?

Mr. Gentry: Certainly all the tax information can be made available on the web. There are features that black out certain parcels. We understand there is an issue with judges, police officers, etc. We don't want that information out there. We've got all those kind of switches. We will make available the ability to go out and see if your taxes have been paid if you have an escrow company. I know when I paid my tax bill. Here you can go out and see if your escrow company has paid your taxes.

Mr. Haste: I assume you can also see the amount?

Mr. Gentry: Yes, that's information that you want to put out.

Mr. Haste: Can that be restricted to only the property owner?

Mr. Gentry: We have a client currently that accepts basically tracking emails for each property owner where they only allow information to be sent out to that person. This is in addition to the web functionality. There are some issues in verifying that is the proper person. Somebody has to administrate this email verifying that this is the actual owner. I think our client has decided since it is a matter of public record that they don't bother verifying it to much.

Mr. Haste: When the reassessment was done and the values were put out on the internet didn't the property owner have a pin number or some way that...when the mailing went out wasn't there a pin number or access number given to us?

Mr. Howe: Yes, when we did the reassessment in 2001 all the property data was out there for the property owner to verify. They were given a password and user ID to access the system but it did not restrict it to the individual property owner. It just gave them the password to log on. That way I could view your data and you could view mine. Neighbors could look at each others' neighbors and rat each other out if their property information was not correct.

Mr. Haste: I wasn't worried about the accessed value that is public, whether it is paid and the amount paid, etc.

Mr. Howe: The tax data is public information as well so if I want to check to see if you paid your taxes I can look at that in my office and tell the amount that you paid or vice versa. We would propose to put that out there for the real estate community, the title county that are also having difficulty verifying that information presently with the tax collectors. Last week alone I got two calls from title companies in different parts of the company that are simply not able to contact the tax collectors. They will not call them back to give the data. This will allow that to take place over the internet.

Mr. Haste: Okay.

Mr. Gentry: I get asked if there were any other ways that the data could be made available to the public that is of some benefit. We have ended up using a variety of different ways that tied into the election systems. The states that we work in now we've helped establish election systems boundary maps using some of the data from the tax system, parcel numbers are often the core of mapping systems, etc. We do a lot of integration with mapping systems to be able to provide different maps with different kinds of information overlay them to the public. Because all this data from my understanding is exactly the same kind of framework that your GIS system uses, they should talk really well together. We have a lot of experience doing that sort of integration. Joe, our Vice-President, and I both came from a GIS background originally. That is how we got into this business. We have a lot familiarity with how to take our information and apply it in that environment as well.

One other thing, we understand there is a potential for a senior freeze exemption going through in the state of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Haste: Say that again.

Mr. Gentry: My understanding a senior freeze exemption is in the Legislature. We have fairly extensive experience with that given that is something that we face in other states. Here is an example of an application (shown on the power point). You can essentially go in and apply for things like exemptions online that then will automatically be emailed and entered into a data base to the County for someone to review. Jason is going to go through an application process. Some of this data obviously you need to hide from the public if people are putting in their social security numbers and income information which is what a senior freeze is all about. That is the kind of information that you want to lock out with a lot of security.

Mr. Haste: How flexible is the program? Let's say that our tax structure changes in five or six years.

Mr. Gentry: Part of what we provide in our services that we monitor legislation both with our clients help and our own. The ongoing maintenance fee that we charge is a blanket fee that covers all legislative changes. So if they make a lot of changes one year it is going to cost more and not as much the next year, we hope we can make up for it. That maintenance fee also includes all new versions of the software. It includes bug fixes, unlimited phone support, and unlimited onsite support. It's our goal to establish ourselves in this market. We are not just looking for your business. We want to create a system and use Dauphin as a pilot county to establish ourselves in the Pennsylvania market. It is our goal to have support people based out of Pennsylvania and to have sales people based here and have sort of a permanent market here. That is what we have done in Missouri when we moved from Illinois to the Missouri market.

Mr. Hartwick: I want to make sure your business is located here in Dauphin County. Steve, remember when we talked about the issues that would put a freeze on that property. Will this allow us to do that in one budget fee and still cause significant changes that we need to make with the current provider?

Mr. Howe: We need to address those issues that are legislative changes. One if the senior freeze and the other is a millage freeze for those that are in the agricultural community. Those folks have when we visited them in three different counties in and around Chicago that they've already operate in. They've got a tremendous background in exemptions that are available in different states and different communities other than Pennsylvania. Everything that we've talked to them about is those two being specific issues, the senior freeze as well as the ag freeze at the current millage rate. Some modulation of that is already being done in those other states where they operate. So nothing that we talked to them about was foreign. It is a matter of turning off switches, doing something that is specific for Pennsylvania but they are very familiar with exemptions.

Mr. Hartwick: That leads to a follow-up question. There maybe a different exemption that occurs I don't know how much the Legislature is going to continue to change and gives up opportunities to help certain populations. With a cost of additional money or is that covered?

Mr. Gentry: That is covered in..

Mr. Hartwick: Unlike our current provider which everything we do we have to pay out.

Mr. Howe: This system is a lot different in that things that we've looked at and what they have available are not what we call hard-coated which means we got to go back into the data.we don't have to go back into the actual guts of the software and change it. It could be changed more on the fly.

Mr. Haste: Can that be done remotely or is that something you have to come onsite to do?

Mr. Gentry: What we do is we actually work on software in our office then we publish via like a secure FTP internet site. Then the client or County would be responsible for downloading the software.

Mr. Haste: So if something were to happen quickly, we wouldn't have to wait for you to get here?

Mr. Gentry: Exactly. The long-term goal would actually be to have staff here based in Pennsylvania..

Mr. Hartwick: In Dauphin County!

Mr. Gentry: Here in Dauphin County and we could respond instantly. We can do that on nights or weekends especially during high peak times when the County needs us we make our staff available after hours on weekends.

Mr. Hartwick: It is always good to hear about the great opportunities and the great flexibility. I've heard a number of those things already. It is good to hear a presentation being summarized. What are your challenges? What do you see as the major stumbling blocks as it relates to trying to turn the system over and being able to complete and be up and running?

Mr. Haste: I would like to hear from Tom on this because Steve has a different version.

Mr. Howe: Steve's version is probably not a lot different than Tom's. One of our major concerns was because of the software that we use presently that we can adapt that data that we spent a great deal of time and effort collecting originally through the evaluation and the years since then. We have a tremendous amount of property characteristics that we will need to maintain and convert into a new system. One of the processes that we wanted to look at and we are looking at it with other vendors, these folks have been the first that have come through with what we want to actually see as a conversion of our data. As Mike has indicated earlier a lot of times imagines are an issue. Lots of times sketches are an issue. In the new modern technology the sketch that you see at the far right-hand corner and how that is labeled and how the property is described actually drives the value. We don't go into paper manuals as we did years ago and try to look up a number and determine what a two-story brick addition would be worth. The system because of the sketching of programs that are available actually goes to that manual automatically when you have that addition or that part of any property properly described and we'll value it based on that description.

Mr. Haste: Giving the location as well?

Mr. Howe: Yes, so bringing that existing data over into a new system and having it come across accurately and correctly is very, very important. We'll ask these folks if we send you a file, would you be willing to demonstrate your capability or your ability to do that? They've done that from what we've seen so far to this point very well. Better than the previous vendor who we spent over a year attempting to get their own data converted to their own new system and it never worked. I hope that answers your question. The other point, I think they have only had our data probably four weeks.

Mr. Gentry: Something like that, yes.

Mr. Howe: Something like four weeks. Tom can certainly elaborate on that.

Mr. Haste: Not that I don't trust you Steve but..

Mr. Guenther: I agree with Steve. Typically when we look at new systems, data conversion costs are built into the project as we move from one system to another. In our evaluation process, we don't spend a lot of time and we don't force the vendor to do data conversion up front because of the difficulties and challenges that we've had over the last two years with the past administration system. We asked these vendors to take our data as part of our evaluation process, convert it and show it to us in their software. That is unique in our normal selection process. We saw this data yesterday for the first time. They spent a number of hours yesterday looking at this. We still are in a review and evaluation process but it is pretty clear that they did a lot of work in a short period of time. It is clear that we have an example here that we haven't seen in a number of other projects as far as converting our data and getting it up and running with our system. That is certainly a positive from what we are seeing here. We're going to do some further evaluation. The data conversion has been a tremendous challenge for us.

Mr. Haste: How much of the daily maintenance of the system can we do internally and how much of it is user friendly where we can..

Mr. Gentry: You should be doing everything with your data processing staff and the staff from Steve's Office. We like to turn all those features over. You should only call us if there is something new...a new feature that you need or revisions. You can generate your own reports as well, new revisions, a bug fix..sometimes there is a data base problem outside of the software but those are the kind of calls that we typically get. Those are the kinds of interventions that we provide. Sometimes we will provide retraining with office staff turnover, that sort of thing including base maintenance price as much training as you need and retraining. If you had two or three new staff members come on and you needed some training there would not be an initial cost for having someone come out and do that. Those are the kinds of things that we typically go and work with the client on, not where you need to call us to do your work.

Mr. Haste: On the GIS side, does the scale on which the flyer that was done affect this at all? Can you take two different scales and blend them in?

Mr. Gentry: It is really independent of what we are providing with the property tax software. Whatever your GIS System supports, we should be able to integrate with it and we have done so with other vendors. Whatever scales your aerials are run at, we should be able to bring those up.

Mr. Haste: Okay. Timeframe?

Mr. Gentry: We've given a fairly detailed timeframe depending on which portion of the system the County wants.

Mr. Haste: That's in our packet.

Mr. Gentry: Is that proposal in there?

Mr. Howe: Julie might be able to speak to that as far as the contract. Basically from the time we get the get-go we're looking at approximately six to seven months until we have the full program implemented.

Mr. Hartwick: You want to tell how you're going to structure that as well.

Mr. Howe: Time was not an issue. I think Commissioner Haste was looking at the complete project. Secondly, was an issue of payment for their services. The original proposal that the folks had given to us was to pay basically half upfront and half upon completion. We told them simply that because of our prior experience with our former vendor that to the Commissioners and this office would not be acceptable. Could we work some other payment type of arrangement? I can let Mike explain what they basically did but to make it short we pay a very nominal fee upfront and pay no more until we're completely satisfied and accept delivery of each individual module. We're not paying half now and pay half later. Mike or Julie can explain that more.

Mr. Gentry: We're used to dealing with your situation. We've had a number of our accounts where they had another vendor come in and hadn't performed to what they wanted and we've had to come in afterwards and provide our software often on an emergency basis. We understand some of those concerns and we're to structure the contract in such a way that we only get paid after we deliver a portion of it and you're satisfied with it. The way we built the company internally, we take a portion of profits and put them aside for software development. So the team of people that we have that work on this, they're already out there and they are already in our existing budget. So we're not expecting you to necessarily fund upfront our development efforts on a promise from us, that we're going to deliver something from my understanding something you've already been through. We expect to get paid after we show you what we can do, after we provide a module and you're satisfied with it.

Mr. Haste: We are a little skeptical.

Mr. Gentry: We understand that.

Mr. Haste: The previous contract after we looked at it, to describe it, we asked for a car, they delivered a car. We assumed the car would run. They claim that we didn't make that clear that the car needed to run.

Mr. Gentry: We've come in afterwards in a number of situations. Julie can talk a little bit about that.

Ms. Hall: Maybe one of the things as part of my presentation is there are several things in that packet that we gave you. One of them is a stack of reports that were generated out of our software with your converted data of various types, CAMA, property tax, collection, receipts to taxpayers for payment, etc. Also in that packet is an outline of what we were going to present to you today. My contribution of that is the last page of that outline, there were two pages, at the top is what makes us different.

As a former county official in the group, having done what Steve did, I was in county government for sixteen years in Illinois so I have some experience with what the commissioners expect from a vendor and what a department head should be able to expect from a vendor. So now I'm sitting on the other side of the desk saying to you, I've been where you are; I know what you need to do; I know who you are accountable to; I know who Steve is accountable to; I know what you need to provide; and we as a company understand that. So that makes us a little unique among the people that provide this type of service to counties.

One of the things when we started this, I said to the gentleman that I'm working with, we need to provide a software solution that gives them accountability, that is affordable, and that you know upfront what it is going to cost. You need to know what that cost is going to be. You need to be able to budget for that cost. What drove me absolutely crazy as a county official was to go to you, the commissioners, and say, we didn't budget enough money because now they're going to do this other thing for us and that's an additional $5,000. What if you don't have the $5,000? So what we try to do is build a pricing structure ...

Mr. Haste: Steve never comes to us with problems that small.

Ms. Hartwick: It usually costs a whole lot more.

Ms. Hall: I was trying to be arbitrary. We try to price it out so that you know what that cost is going to be. No surprises in those contracts. Those who understand because we have come in as a cleanup crew that you need to know upfront what it is you're getting. So instead of us telling you this is what we can do because that sounds great and I'm the sales director, we're here to show you what we've already done with the data that you provided to us and some samples. Steve's staff was wonderful to assist us in the information that we needed to make this conversion successful. Samples of property record cards, sample tax bills, receipts, reports, things that Steve's Office needs to be accountable to you and the people that you serve; that's what we're proposing to provide here. Not vaporware, we've all been there for vaporware. We don't sell vaporware. We would very much like to do business with Dauphin County in particular in Pennsylvania as a state. You would see a lot of me probably. Thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning.

Commissioners: Thank you.

Mr. Gentry: Another thing real quick, we do have a lot of experience in other states with some other laws and the way taxes can be collected and processed for example the senior assessment freeze. We do have experience with it. There may be many features in the software that you may not need today but you may decide tomorrow that you want and it will already be there, tax collection, all of your tax collectors could be on this same system online, offline, that sort of thing. In other states that we've been dealing with the county is largely responsible for collecting all tax monies and then distributing those monies. So the software already has all those features into it. So some law changes or something else changes, there is a collectors position that isn't filled, you have the ability already in the software to address some of those needs ahead of time.

Mr. Haste: Could it figure rebates for us? Let's say gaming goes gangbusters like the Governor has promised it will.

Mr. Gentry: Certainly, that is a very typical sort of thing that we do. Money that comes from the state then could go out to different kinds of abatement and that sort of thing we're pretty used to dealing with.

Mr. Haste: Okay.

SALARY BOARD

(A complete copy of the Salary Board Meeting Minutes are on file in the Commissioners' Office.)

PERSONNEL

Ms. Sinner: We have a list of different positions. Are there any questions on any of them? I would request a vote on several items and I have several additions. I would like a vote on vacancy #6, new hires #18 & 19, then changes #44, 45, 46, 49, & 54.

Mr. Hartwick: Could you go through those again?

Ms. Sinner: Changes #44, 45, 46, 49, & 54.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Is there another one?

Ms. Sinner: It should be #44, 45, 46, 49, & 54.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Okay.

Mr. Haste: Item #55, doesn't need to occur today?

Ms. Sinner: No it doesn't. It is effective December 4th.

Mr. Saylor: I just want to note for the record, we are at the time period when the hiring freeze window is open.

Mr. Hartwick: I didn't see any vacancy adjustment number for this particular packet.

It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. DiFrancesco to approve Items #6, 18, 19, 44, 45, 46, 49, & 54 in the personnel packet; motion carried.

Mr. Haste: Thanks for doing all that work late in the day yesterday.

Ms. Sinner: You're welcome.

PURCHASE ORDERS

Mr. Baratucci: You should have all received your purchasing packet yesterday. As usual there are some budget issues that we need to address. I should note that there are a lot of items on here for the Courts, specifically for the DJ's in response to your request that they spend money that they have available for the end of the year. So you will see those on here, they are ones that need some budget adjustments which we'll handle between now and next week.

Mr. Hartwick: How many more will we see? Do you know?

Mr. Baratucci: We're still working on it. I'm sure there will be more in the next packet.

Mr. Hartwick: Can you just keep a tally on the number?

Mr. Baratucci: Sure, that's a budget adjustment that needs to be done so the money is there that is available.

In addition, I wanted to mention that I saw something that went out from Personnel about a cutoff date. We usually do this every year. I would suggest that we make the December 13th meeting our cutoff date for our purchase orders as well. It is a combined Workshop/Legislative Meeting. I would say that I would like to put something out saying that the 13th meeting would be the last one with the same idea that there are two more meetings after that for any true emergencies. We would do this in order to clean things up. If you are okay with that, I'll put something out for December 13th.

Are there any other questions relative to the purchase order packet? (There were none.)

Tom has sent something down relative to something called a remote access usage policy. Our employees would be able to access the county's network and internet from home based on using their own computer or wherever they have internet connection. We would approve this similar to the BlackBerry request. On the third page of the document that I handed you there, there are three different ideas that they were proposing. They would run this through Tom's office first. The first two would be at no cost to the county other than Tom's office trying to support it to make sure that they have the proper connections to do this and any time that it would take to do that. The third option would be similar to the BlackBerry option where the county picks up the cost and that would be about an estimate of $803 a year, $50 for the unit and approximately $65 a month for the service. We would like to do this the same way we do the BlackBerry. You've kept that under control. I think there are 13 BlackBerrys where the county is paying for the whole fee. I would suggest and recommend that we follow that same diligent process in approving any of these. The first step going through Tom's office and if Tom feels that it works and can make it work and it is legitimate, put it through the purchase order packet and you guys have the final say in yes, or no. Options one and two are kind of like the options now where the people would pretty much pay their own to hookup. They pay the $50 right now. Tom said there wouldn't be any cost such $50 but there would be some involvement from his office to make sure that it flies. Basically it is a remote access policy. It is putting someone on the county's system and enter the internet from a remote location. If you have any questions, Tom can answer them.

Mr. Haste: Just make sure that the Solicitor's Office looks at this.

Mr. Baratucci: Sure.

Mr. Haste: We're looking at the employee handbook and manual policy and somehow this should get incorporated into that.

Mr. Baratucci: We would like you to read over this in the next week and we'll get a copy to Personnel and the Solicitor's Office and possibly adopt it at next week's meeting if you are okay with it. That way we would have the policy from there on.

Mr. DiFrancesco: If you could Randy, look into pages 24, 33, judge's chair.

Mr. Baratucci: I already have an answer for that if you would like to hear it. Would you like me to explain it?

Mr. DiFrancesco: No, explain it to me afterwards.

Mr. Baratucci: Okay, I knew that was going to be an issue so I already have an explanation on it.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I think I know why. Just for you and Tom, I see on page 27 and 28, the color Laser Jet printers. Again I just want, when people start buying stuff like that, that they actually need that level of color.

Mr. Baratucci: All those things go through Tom's Office first. Anybody that submits a requisition without Tom's okay is returned. I trust his judgment.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Okay, we know some people like to have a little bit more than they actually need. As long as they need it, that's fine and if they don't need it, then obviously they shouldn't be getting it. Thanks.

TRAINING PACKET

Mr. Haste: There is nothing in the Training Packet that needs approved today.

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

Mr. Haste: Bill or Chad, do you want to speak about Item A? Everyone is familiar with Item A?

Mr. DiFrancesco & Mr. Hartwick: Okay.

1. Approval of an Easement Agreement between Dauphin County and McDonald's Corporation on a tract of land located in Swatara Township. (***A VOTE IS REQUESTED 11/15/06)

Is there a motion to approve Item A?

It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick to approve an Easement Agreement between Dauphin County and McDonald's Corporation on a tract of land located in Swatara Township; motion carred.

1. Appoint Steve Shaver, EMA Director, to the Dauphin County Local Emergency Planning Committee.

SOLICITOR'S REPORT

Mr. Tully: Nothing to add to the report but will answer any questions you may have.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Could you get back to me on Item #4? I'm assuming the project is outside of Dauphin County and that's why.

Mr. Tully: The vast majority is that's actually one participant in Dauphin County.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Could you give me an update afterwards on Item #17?

Mr. Tully: Certainly, I just received that myself.

REPORT FROM CHIEF CLERK/CHIEF OF STAFF - CHAD SAYLOR

Mr. Saylor: I have nothing unless there are any questions of me.

COMMISSIONERS' COMMENTS

Mr. DiFrancesco: I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my 11th grade shadow who left the room about a half hour ago. I still want to get it on record. The young man was sitting in the front of the room for most of the meeting and was very good to pay attention while a lot was going on. Today, I have with me Mark Shimmel, an 11th grade student from Middletown High School. Middletown has a pretty active Shadowing Program and I try to get someone to come up and spend a day every year. He is on a tour right now of the Courthouse. Mark is a member of the Middletown Student Council. He plays baseball for Middletown, in the past has played football, he also is a cross country runner; he is a member of the National Honor Society; and is involved in the Honors Program at Middletown. When I asked him what he wanted to do in the future he gave me this funny look like I have absolutely no idea but he expressed an interest in getting involved in law to some degree. It is always a pleasure to have a young student come in and spend the day looking at the process. It just so happened today the process was interesting to watch. That's all I have.

Mr. Hartwick: Just one comment for public record, I want to note early today the reason I was late for the Commissioners' Meeting was we went to the Chief of Police's Association of Dauphin County to come together collectively where we have been working for about 14 months to come up with a way for us to better manage a crisis response with on the beat police officer. We've come down to the point where we created a usable card with wording on the backside that we will be distributing to all the police officers. We're going to be starting with Derry Township and Susquehanna Township as the pilots. This is a way to track more efficiently our responses basically human services response to crisis emergency situations. So today was a big success. I just wanted to note for the record where I was at.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: We are again at the point in time of the Meeting for public participation. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the Board?

Mr. DeRose: The Drug & Alcohol Case Manager Specialist position, as we speak that position is being advertised in the Patriot News. We've already contacted them and it will be in the Sunday paper. It will be in the paper in three locations to try to get a better hit on our advertising dollars. We will also be advertising on the internet. We have a deadline of December 1. We will begin the interview process as soon as the applications come in. We'll have everything on the fast track. We will be moving quicker than we normally do just to get this position onboard as fast as we can. If you have any questions on that, the Prison Board will include the position in the table of organization. We can do that at the next Prison Board meeting.

ADJOURNMENT

It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Hartwick to adjourn the meeting; motion carried.