DAUPHIN COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WORKSHOP MEETING
MAY 9, 2007 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; Marie E. Rebuck, Controller; Bruce Foreman, Esq., Assistant Solicitor; Diane McNaughton, Commissioners' Office; Leila McAdoo, Solicitor's Office; Dan Robinson, Director of Community & Economic Development; George Connor, Community & Economic Development; Steve Suknaic, Director of Juvenile Probation; C. Jeff Patton, Juvenile Probation; Randy Baratucci, Director of Purchasing; Kim Robison, Director of Domestic Relations; Mike Yohe, Director of Budget & Finance; Kay Sinner, Personnel; Dave Schreiber, Personnel; Scott Burford, Deputy Chief Clerk; Garry Esworthy, Risk Manager; Pamela Hammaker, Personnel; Faye Fisher, Personnel; Tom Guenther, Director of IT; Bob Hawley, Courts; Lena Martinez-Fure, Commissioners' Office; Jena Wolgemuth, Commissioners' Office; Brenda Hoffer, Commissioners' Office; and Richie-Ann Martz, Commissioners' Office

GUESTS PRESENT

Garry Lenton, Donald Sauve, Allen Trawitz, Kevin Jury, Mike Fiaschetti, Suzanne Cassel and Rev. Alvin Q. Taylor

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 six sets of meeting minutes that will be taken up at next week's meeting.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

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

DIRECTORS/GUESTS

1. Kevin Jury, Lykens Borough
   1. Lykens Community Development Corporation Request for CDBG Unprogrammed Fund Account

Mr. Jury: I have with me Allen Trawitz, Secretary/Treasurer of the Lykens Community Development Corporation and Don Sauve, our Vice President and I'm President.

You folks have been very supportive of our efforts. It has been a slow moving project being that we are all volunteers and still doing what we do for a living every day. It takes a little more time. We recently received our bid for a new roof on the Lykens Hotel Project. The bid price was $115,000. The Commissioners committed, through the Economic Development, $25,000. Senator Gordner has committed $25,000. We have a shortfall of $65,000. We are requesting today $50,000. We currently have $35,000 to $40,000 of current debt that we are committed too. I'm highlighting that just because we are not just looking for freebies or handouts. We definitely believe in the project that we are working with. We are currently working with a contractor who has drawn up several plans, but we have 13 apartments, tentatively looking at 55 and older, as well as office space and retail space on the 1st floor, and a small coffee shop. Currently the facility is appraised at $14,000. We have a price tag of $1.3 to $1.5 million for a total restoration project. We have done our homework as far as on the income side on what we feel we are able to get in working with this contractor. We are trying to do our part to bring a bit more incentive to the project, because for someone to be investing $1.3 million to $1.5 million on the square in Lykens is willing to be a risk taker as well. So, we are part of the Main Street Program and that is taking place as far as we have applied for the Building Grant. That paperwork is in the process of happening. The roof is a necessary component to make the facility dry. Everything that we have done with structure reports is that the building is very sound structurally. It is a matter of getting it dry and then we can move forward. So, we have committed that we will get that facility dry in order to present that to someone else to make an investment in the community. That would be a synopsis. Do you have any questions?

Mr. Hartwick: First of all I want to put something on for the record. I want to commend your organization. We have far too few individuals who are trying to redirect growth into areas that it belongs, where the current small towns, cities and urban areas, even though it is in the rural area, it is not taking down or taking up green space, it is trying to move restoration efforts to an old abandoned building, which from an adoptive reuse standpoint it serves as an eyesore now. You are not ruining the green space that is all too easy for developers to go out after and destroy. I want to commend you for it. I watched a scary movie the night before we took a look at the building. When I walked in that day there was this little doll baby with black eyes on this rocking chair and as I opened the door I almost jumped and ran out the other direction very quickly, because of the setting that it was in and seeing that actual doll baby in there made me get a creepy feeling about the building. I want to commend you on the efforts. I know it is a huge undertaking and a great deal of risk. This Board has a vision for reuse of older facilities, trying to bring them into current use and figure out a way that we can do what we can, in particular the area in the upper end, preserve what green space that we have available. You certainly should be commended for taking on the challenge. It is not going to be easy. Just get rid of that doll baby.

Mr. Jury: It is cleaned out, down to the bare walls.

Mr. Haste: After these improvements are made, the Contractor plans to purchase?

(Mr. Jury nodded his head.)

Mr. Haste: The Contractor, what is the purchase price?

Mr. Jury: We have thrown out a price tag of $50,000. We are looking to be able to move then. There is a property just across the street, which is also a vacant property and so we felt that if we could get out what we have into it, what we have committed to, as well as we are working with the train station, just three doors down. We have monies committed in that as well. The price tag of $50,000, they were comfortable with. It is really the whole liability side. If we can get that reduced down a bit more they would feel more comfortable with the whole project. They have also committed that they are willing to give back to CDC with a prompt response of being able to occupy all the tenant space for the project that they are willing to give back. They are not looking just for the freebies. It is a local contractor, which we feel really good about. They are based in Millersburg. It has been refreshing because they also have an interest and they live in the valley as well.

Mr. Haste: You are fairly sure once you do this and you sell it they will invest the money and they told you that they are not going to walk away and leave you with an improved vacant building?

Mr. Jury: We have addressed that. The only way we will and that will be in the documents once we get that far. We are not revisiting this project. We are doing this and this needs to move forward, because then we are onto the next project and are not going to revisit it. We have entertained the thoughts of being a holding company so to speak, but in our small scale of things we have too many irons in the fire at this point to be getting into management.

Mr. Haste: I think if you are fairly sure that they are going to move it forward, I think you are probably right, that is the best way to go. I just didn't want you to get stuck with another vacant building.

Mr. Hartwick: Are they asking for any additional government incentives?

Mr. Jury: We are working with the USDA and are trying to come up with some other projects for low interest funding. We have two foundations that we are working on as far as to try to get a grant in there that would help to reduce that liability side.

Mr. Hartwick: I was speaking more in terms of any kind of TIF or tax advantage?

Mr. Jury: We have not pursued locally at this point, because of what the assessed value is. We were going to come before the Tax Assessment Hearing Board but sort of chuckled because of what the taxes were. At this point in time we were just continuing to work forward and when it comes to that point in time we will work on that. The Local Borough has forgiven the taxes on the property for this past year and this current year that we are in. We have on our slate to approach the school district as well.

Mr. Hartwick: Any improvements to the building are going to obviously raise the value of the property and that would be part of the developer's responsibility? Is that correct?

Mr. Jury: Correct.

Mr. Haste: We will get together with our Economic Development folks to see what funds are available and have it on next week's agenda.

Mr. Saylor: The Solicitor's Office is preparing a resolution for next week.

1. Mike Fiaschetti and Suzanne Cassel - Highmark Blue Shield
   1. Presentation of Health Care Costs

Mr. Fiaschetti: My name is Mike Fiaschetti and I'm a Senior Vice President for Highmark Blue Shield and am responsible for Highmark's health insurance business here in Central Pennsylvania. I have Suzanne Cassel with me, who is a Senior Client Manager responsible for the day-to-day interactions with Dauphin County relative to their health care benefits. I have a very brief, but very positive report for the Commissioners this morning about the health benefit costs for the employees of Dauphin County.

I decided to keep this very brief. I could come up here with lots of data and reports, but tried to reduce this to one graph that depicts the trend with the rate of increase in health benefits costs for the employees of Dauphin County over the last four years. Four years ago the trends were not good. They were going up. They were going up in the double digit ranges, but four years ago we worked with the Commissioners and to your credit you made some very wise and tough decisions. Decisions that included modifying benefits, adding co-payments, decisions that included implementing the health and wellness program to engage the employees of Dauphin County in their health and to address health care issues. At the same time you were able to maintain very comprehensive benefits for the employees. As a result of those decisions and as a result of the partnership with Highmark where we brought the disease management Blues on Call Program, as well as other management programs implemented with our providers and hospitals, like our Pay for Performance Program "Quality Blue". In addition to those things, we have been able to maintain a cost trend and this year as a result of your decisions you will actually achieve a negative trend. That trend will more than likely be in excess of a 4% decrease. So, for the first time in many, many years, this year you will pay less for health care benefits for the employees of Dauphin County than you did the year before. I can tell you in my 23 years in managed care and in health insurance, I can count on my two hands how many times I have seen a rate decrease, especially for an employer of this size. I would like to attribute that to the decisions that were made and my compliments to you for making those tough decisions yet achieving that balance of maintaining very, very good benefits for the employees.

In addition, the other thing that I wanted to note, by virtue of the sale of the Spring Creek nursing facility, we had estimated about a $2.5 million savings last time I was here. There was somewhat less employees that came off of those rosters, so now we are looking at an actual savings of probably $2.2 million in health benefits costs. What this means is that last year you spent around $14.7 million for health benefits costs. This year you will spend just north of $12 million. That is a combination of approximately 4% plus decrease in rates and the reduction of health benefits costs for individuals as a result of the sale of the Spring Creek facility. So, it is very positive for Dauphin County and for the taxpayers of Dauphin County.

Mr. Haste: What is the average increase or decrease that you see going across the industry next year in premium costs?

Mr. Fiaschetti: For Highmark we are seeing an average of around 8% or 9% increase. Nationally, and I brought these figures with me, from AON, which is a national consulting firm, they conduct the survey, they are showing for rate 2006 a 12.3% increase nationally. Another consulting firm shows 11.1% as of January 2007 increase in health benefits. That is for major employers. Dauphin County would be considered a major employer having more than 500 employees. That is typically what these surveys are done on. So, you are certainly bucking the trend. Again, I think it is based on some good decisions that were made.

Mr. Haste: What, if any, impact would they have if the merger goes through?

Mr. Fiaschetti: If the merger goes through what we intend to do is rationalize our administrative costs. So, we would hold our administrative costs for two years and that means that you will get the benefit. That is about 8% to 10% of the total premium dollars. So, we would be able to hold that component of the premium dollar flat for at least two years after the merger; meaning that you would get the benefit. I also want to point out, and I think you are all aware that we recently entered into a 10-year deal with Penn State and Hershey Medical Center. We are going to be covering their 60,000 employees and dependents, as well, we will have a very favorable contractual relationship with the Hershey Medical Center. This means a better buy for Dauphin County and for the employees of Dauphin County when they use that facility and those physicians.

Mr. Hartwick: I appreciate you keeping this not high level. I'm not going to get into all the details of the things that we discussed, trying to arrive at these numbers. The only one thing that is still concerning is some of the utilization trends of our current employees and changing the behaviors of our current employees in order to make sure that our future renewals and negotiations are not moving in the opposite direction. There are a number of factors that have caused our trends to move in this direction now, but the utilization of our employees still remains a concern even though we have made major gains with wellness and a number of other places. I still think we have a long way to go to control those costs. I look forward to sitting down and discussing these during this renewal process. You guys have done a good job and we appreciate the relationship.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I would also like to take a moment and obviously this is extremely good news for Dauphin County as a whole, but I want to take a moment to thank Highmark for their efforts in helping us to organize things like the Wellness Group. I would also like to take a moment to thank the Wellness Group, who has been very persistent through a very difficult probably two year period. They operated for the first year without much of a budget at all trying to get their feet under them, going through some difficult times and terms of getting people involved to the point where now we have a number of very good programs going on. County employees are taking an active role and that would not have been done without the hard work of a bunch of people being very persistent. I want to thank you for that effort and thank the Committee.

1. Garry Esworthy, Risk Manager
   1. Workers Comp Insurance

Mr. Esworthy: I too would like to make a very brief report on insurance issues, especially dealing with Spring Creek right now. From the documents that I just gave you, you can see that our liability policy alone was $136,954 for calendar year Feb. 2006 through Feb. 2007. We received a refund of $12,526.44 for the remaining period of that policy term. The Property premium is approximately $40,000 per year for year June 2006 through June 2007. We received a reimbursement of $20,230 for that policy. The Excess Workers Compensation Premium for policy year January 2004 through December 2006 was $167,540. The same policy for January 2007 through December 2009 will be $111,156, savings of $56,384.00. We also received a credit back from the Pelican Insurance Subscribers Savings Account of $78,732.84. Credits received for the total amount, since the sale of Spring Creek, was $11,489.28. The interesting thing about this whole process for insurance premiums on the right hand side, you will see that we will probably save in property, liability and excess workers compensation insurance alone $233,338.00 per year.

Mr. Haste: Starting in 2007?

Mr. Esworthy: In 2007.

In Workers Comp, last year we spent for 2006 approximately $61,724 on workers comp claims for Spring Creek alone. The interesting thing is though last year we spent $91,816 on claims from Spring Creek that were previous years' claims. This year we are up to $131,876 in claims that are previous claims that are slowly going down. On behalf of Donna, she is doing a great job and we are starting to bring back some of those employees and are requesting some of those employees who were not picked up by Spring Creek that are on workers comp, inviting them back to light duty positions here at the County. A majority of them are refusing to come back to work so therefore we can terminate their benefits at some point in time. That dollar amount is going to slowly go down. I will say that without Spring Creek being amongst the County organizations any longer we are going to be saving in excess of $300,000 a year on insurance benefits. That dollar amount that we are paying on claims from prior years will slowly be cut back on everything. Some of the money that we saved we are using it for assessments that we have to do for the buildings, which was approved last week. It is a great savings to the County. Are there any questions?

Mr. Hartwick: Just a total number of back claims that we have to resolve yet. Do you have an idea?

Mr. Esworthy: I would say that we have approximately 15 back claims that we have to resolve. These are long term claims.

Mr. Haste: All at Spring Creek?

Mr. Esworthy: All Spring Creek claims. Some of these claims go back to 1986. We are slowly litigating those claims, looking at alternative financing for those claims and those are the claims that I call very outstanding claims. The other ones are just medical claims that we are slowly picking up. Those fifteen are indemnity claims that we want to get rid of, which are costing us a great deal of money.

1. Mike Yohe, Director of Budget & Finance
   1. First Quarter 07 Budget Report

Mr. Yohe: I'm here to give a report on how the Budget looks so far in 2007. I actually would like to back up a little bit. A couple weeks ago I actually provided some numbers on final 2006. As you know it takes several months before the Controller's Office closes the books for the expenses and the Treasurer closes the books on the revenue. So, it is not something that we can get real quick. I had to wait until the end of March before I could actually look at 2006 and get a handle on where we were at. I'll continue the trend of good news. In 2006, we ended very well. We were able to add to our fund balance by about $6 million, which is good. Generally you see something like that in the years when taxes are raised. This is the second year without any raise in taxes. We had about a $6 million increase to the General Fund balance. Most of the departments for 2006 came in under. Our revenue exceeded expectations and the expenses came in under. So, 2006 ended very well. The numbers that I'm looking at are still not final until the auditors come in, but I'm estimating that there won't be any surprises come the audit. Some years there are a few little glitches that I was anticipating when the audit comes out, but I don't anticipate anything like that this year. Again, I gave you that about three weeks or a month ago. I'm here to answer any questions on 2006 too.

2007 is not quite as accurate. As you know I am trying to project out, based on only four months worth of information so far, but when I do this I do go through line-by-line-by-line. Every single line I'll look at trends, actuals from the year before, I'll look at where we are at this year, I'll go back on my notes from the budget hearings as to what we are anticipating to spend and then on top of all of that, I'll put a very conservative estimate in so the numbers that you are seeing on this report I fully expect will be higher than what they are going to end up on the expense and probably a little lower on the revenue. I know you like that. I'm not going to go through every one. We have about 123 categories in the General Fund, most of them are just on a department level, but if you look at that an overwhelming majority again, even with my conservative estimates, will come in under on the expenses. If you look at it as a total for 2007, I'm anticipating, and this is a small number, coming in about $376,000 under budget on the expense side. I think it will be better than that, but that is what the numbers came up to. Again it is after a line-by-line estimate.

Mr. Hartwick: Keeping your contingency drawers closed.

Mr. Yohe: On the revenue side about $1.4 million coming in over on the revenue. You add those two together we are looking at about a $1.8 million increase again for the third year after a tax increase. That is very good to the fund balance. I anticipate that $1.8 million could be substantially higher than that until the end of the year. There are a few trouble spots.

Mr. Hartwick: Children & Youth.

Mr. Yohe: I don't know if you want to look at them. I know we have talked about Children & Youth.

Mr. Haste: Just as a trend, this is good information. But, when I looked through it I had a very heated discussion with the Warden this week. Again, I just think where we are going to have trouble this year and I'm not saying anything that some people sitting in the audience don't know, our crime rate is still driving our budget in the wrong direction in certain areas. Other departments are doing very well. Even though departments are doing the best they can, but the shaky areas in this budget still are those driven by crime, both juvenile and adult.

Mr. Hartwick: Just right on the opposite side you then have areas where we are supposed to be investing in prevention and intervention dollars, where the State is pushing off more and more of the costs and the responsibilities on County government, which makes it even more challenging to take care of those mandated responsibilities. I see in your budget estimates in Children & Youth, again, I think when we first started out here it was about a $7 million or less transfer from the General Fund to the Children & Youth Budget. In 2007, we are expecting a $10 million transfer. Again these are for federally mandated services that are supposed to be funded almost fully by the Federal and State government that the County is providing directly. Clearly, I think the only way that we are going to reverse this trend is to be able to look at a class action lawsuit from all counties to start to make sure that the Feds and the States begin to fully fund the services that they are mandating that we provide. So, we go from $7 million to $10 million, I see you have increased it 5% up through the year 2011, that is absolutely unacceptable to continue to pass those costs onto County taxpayers when that is not a requirement of County government to fund those services. The biggest concern with that was supposed to be investing in prevention and intervention services some ways to keep you out of the criminal justice system, which is driving our costs. You talk about placement, those costs per day are a whole lot less than us using community based alternatives or not seeing kids in the detention or prison systems at all. The only way that is going to happen is if we can figure out a way within this budget to be able to invest in those prevention services.

Mr. Haste: You are very conservative. There are a few areas where I think your numbers may be off. I would not be surprised for us to sit here three years from now and a 5% increase not be enough based on Federal and State additional cuts and the numbers just going up. Hopefully you are right. I wouldn't be surprised if those numbers aren't on target.

Mr. Yohe: Like I said I jumped the budgets only $8 million and I jumped it up to $10 million as an estimate and then drove my estimates from there. You are right that is one area of concern. If we look at this the salary vacancy is working real well. If I run numbers strictly on the salary we are looking at about $1 million under budget for salary costs. The vacancy adjustment is 600 so we are exceeding that. The overtime is a little higher than what I would like to see, but the two together we are okay. Without your vacancy adjustment every quarter the numbers would be a little higher on that side. Interest earnings continue well. Tax revenue for 2006 actually came in at 1.8% growth and my number was only 1%. If we can keep that up, there is room for improvement on these numbers also. There is some lease revenue coming in from Paxton Street already so that will be a good hit on this. That really wasn't anticipated in my future numbers.

Mr. Hartwick: Did you do a vacancy adjustment based upon the salary window yet or are you expecting that next week?

Mr. Yohe: You mean for this? I just sent it out. It was a long one. I just sent it out about ten minutes before the meeting. That adjustment, we started about $1 million over the 600, it is dropping to about $600,000, but over the $600,000 so we still have a positive. We are still doing good even with the many hires that are on the list this week.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I want to put it in real terms, because as Commissioner Hartwick mentioned, the State and Federal governments are cutting us and where that is probably most significantly showing up in the budget is in the prevention programs that we have had to eliminate. In turn we have seen a rise in the juvenile crime and that is a real problem. The other place, as we look down the road, because we don't have the resources to invest in the prevention programs is the fact that it is continually pressuring us to look for ways to handle for instance the juveniles coming into the system. One of the things that I know we are going to be addressing, because I'm already talking to my departments, is the fact that juvenile probation is already considering adding six more juvenile probation officers to their contingent because case loads are getting very high. Schaffner basically is over populated in terms of we are sending on average 15 kids out to other county facilities which drive up our costs in terms of coordinating and transporting people back and forth. Again the pressure falls back on us to come up with alternatives to make sure that we keep kids out of placement, which we are normally very aggressive at doing any way, but it becomes more difficult when we are now forced into a position of sending kids off to other facilities. I truly believe in my heart that if we had those dollars to invest in prevention programs, that we would be able to keep more children out of the system, which is really the goal that we are trying to accomplish. Obviously the cutbacks that we continue to experience from the Federal and State governments on how they determine to set their priorities, again to a largest degree I think without talking to the counties who are providing the services, are just having a domino affect now. Unfortunately it is often the kids in the system that suffer and also the adults requiring services in other departments that suffer. The Federal and State governments need a lot more input from us and I don't know why they just don't seek it more aggressively, but we certainly communicate with them quite a bit in terms of letters and lobbying to help them understand what the impact is of the communities. What it is like for the services on the street when they make these decisions to cut, simply because the money is not there. So, we will be faced with some more difficult decisions going forward and while today's picture looks pretty good in terms of things that we have been able to control, the pressure is still going to be on us in areas where other sources of revenue that are funded out of income tax or whatever on the Federal and State level. Once again those responsibilities are going to fall on the property owners at the local level. It's just not the way the system should work.Mr. Yohe: We are in the process now of meeting, as you are aware the fiscal budget is coming up. We can address some of those issues there. Are there any questions? (There was none.)

PERSONNEL

Ms. Sinner: Are there any questions on the Salary Board items? (There was none.)

Are there any questions on the items in the Personnel Transaction Listing? (There was none.)

Mr. Haste: Were there any changes?

Ms. Sinner: No changes.

Mr. Hartwick: When is the next hiring window?

Ms. Sinner: This is it and then the next one will be in August.

PURCHASE ORDERS

Mr. Baratucci: You should have all received your Packet yesterday. As usual we have one or two budget issues to fix. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them? (There was none.)

The other thing that was left over from last week is Steve Libhart's request for a Blackberry, for the County to pay the $50. I think you were going to think about that or do you have a decision on that yet?

Mr. DiFrancesco: Actually I played phone tag with Ed a couple times this week and we did eventually talk, but it will have to sit until next week.

TRAINING PACKET

Mr. Saylor: I see none that require action today.

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

Mr. Haste: We have Items for Discussion. Item B needs a vote and I would also ask that we vote on Item C. I mentioned earlier in my discussion with the Warden this week, normally the Warden likes to bring people in for Correctional Officer Week. This is, in fact, Correctional Officer Week, but I would ask that we approve the Proclamation this week and then we will present it next week at the Prison Board Meeting.

1. Approval to sell the following parcels from the Repository List to KDR Investments, LLP:
   1. Parcel #11-9-22, 1939 Logan St., for $301.00
   2. Parcel #11-9-51, 1934 Logan St., for $301.00
   3. Parcel #11-9-52, 1932 Logan St., for $301.00
   4. Parcel #11-9-60, 308 Muench St., for $301.00
   5. Parcel #11-9-61, 306 Muench St., for $301.00
2. Modification Agreement to Agreement of Sale between Dauphin County and Verizon Pennsylavnia, Inc. for real estate purchase of Tax Parcel #29-031-043-001-00020 in Halifax Township, Dauphin County. (***A VOTE IS REQUESTED 5/9/07***)
3. Proclamation - Correctional Officers' Week.

It was moved by Mr. Hartwick and seconded by Mr. DiFrancesco that the Board approve Items B and C listed above under Items for Discussion; motion carried.

SOLICITOR'S REPORT - BRUCE FOREMAN, ESQ.

Mr. Foreman: There is nothing to add to the report that was circulated, unless there are any questions? (There was none.)

CHIEF CLERK'S REPORT - CHAD SAYLOR

Mr. Saylor: I have nothing more unless you have any questions of me? (There was none.)

COMMISSIONERS' COMMENTS

Mr. DiFrancesco: I have a question and I'm not sure who honestly to direct this to—the Solicitor's Office or the IT Department or possibly another department head. Realizing that a lot of the information that we work with in Dauphin County is public information that can be accessed through defined ways through requests through freedom of information or whatever, those are not the issues that I am referring to. The question I'm going to ask is do we have policies currently in place that protect possible public information or sensitive information from the use of employees of the County for personal use. If, for instance, somebody wanted to access a data base and again I'm not talking about things like voter registration files where we know that there is a process in place if someone wants to come in and lay down money they can buy files and so forth. I'm really talking about more internal information. Do we have policies in place currently that protect that information from an individual's personal use that actually protects the taxpayers that would be in the system for some way? In particular at this moment I'm talking about retirees. If somebody wanted to access the retirement system and get a list of names, that data base, would that information be protected by some standard that someone would have to go through?

Mr. Foreman: The way that information would be generally requested would be under the Right to Know Law. There is a standard in the Right to Know Law where any information which might violate anyone's privacy can be redacted before the information would be released, such as addresses, social security numbers and that kind of information as opposed to say the names of retirees without their addresses. It is hard for me to be more specific than that, but if a request like that were made we would have to review it to make sure that there are no privacy or security violations. The only portions that would be accessible would be information that deals with expenditure of public funds. For example, the fact that people qualify for retirement benefits that would be available. Beyond that, the question what is available would have to be reviewed and that particular question is actually related to a case that is right now on appeal through our State Appellate Courts through the State retirement system.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Again, that case dealt with what?

Mr. Foreman: It dealt with the release of persons in the State retirement system and their retirement benefits and the release of information what the public has the right to know about their retirement benefits. I guess a part of the case that has become most public is one of the requests was for the retirement information on Joe Paterno, which would indicate what he makes for a living and that is on appeal right now through the Courts.

Mr. DiFrancesco: If someone accessed the information without a Right to Know Request, which comes through the Chief Clerk's Office, is there accountability for that?

Mr. Foreman: Yes there could be. A person does not have a right to that information unless they go through that process.

Mr. DiFrancesco: That includes employees of the County?

Mr. Foreman: Yes.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I'll talk to you afterwards, but I would like to know what policies that we have in place that would govern this to know for certain if there is not a policy that we need to implement, but it sounds like probably it is already covered.

Mr. Foreman: I think there is also a uniform personnel handbook that is in final form but has not been issued, but I believe that has it covered.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

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

ADJOURNMENT

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