DAUPHIN COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
WORKSHOP MEETING
JUNE 4, 2008 10:00 A.M.

MEMBERS PRESENT

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

STAFF PRESENT

Chad Saylor, Chief Clerk; Marie E. Rebuck, Controller; Janis Creason, Treasurer, William Tully, Esq., Solicitor; J. Scott Burford, Deputy Chief Clerk; Robert Burns, Director of Area Agency on Aging; Randy Baratucci, Director of Purchasing; Mike Yohe, Director of Budget & Finance; Diane McNaughton, Commissioners' Office; Kay Lengle, Personnel; Amy Richards, Commissioners' Office; Melissa Wion, Personnel; William Struemke, Solicitor's Office; David Feidt, Solicitor's Office; Dave Schreiber, Personnel; Leila McAdoo, Solicitor's Office; Jena Wolgemuth, Commissioners' Office; Brenda Hoffer, Commissioners' Office; Guy P. Beneventano, Esq., Solicitor's Office; Tom Guenther, Director of IT and Richie-Ann Martz, Commissioners' Office

GUESTS PRESENT

Garry Lenton

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 a series of meeting minutes that we will take up at next week's meeting.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

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

DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS/GUESTS

1. Mike Yohe, Director of Budget & Finance
   1. Presentation of the Proposed 2008/2009 Fiscal Year Budget

Mr. Yohe: As you know today is the day that we advertised to make the proposed 2008/2009 Fiscal Year Budget available for the 20-day inspection period. Again these funds run July 1 to June 30 to mirror the State fiscal year. They are primarily funded through State and Federal funding.

As you can see on the Summary, we have a total proposed budget of $161,570,699. The numbers that you are looking at are essentially the same as what we reviewed last Wednesday at the public hearing. One notable exception was the counter-terrorism grant that Steve Shaver had spoken about. We had a higher final number than what we had estimated when we went into that public hearing. Other than that the numbers are the same as what we went over last week.

Primarily these funds are funded by State and Federal dollars. The second page of the Summary shows the General Fund obligation to these funds. As you can see everybody remained the same; one even dropped a little bit, except for Children and Youth. That was a big increase of 7.62%, $741,000, that is in line with what we anticipated given the cuts that we knew were coming down the road with TANF and their other funding sources. Again, we got, with the exception of Children and Youth, I think we actually had a decrease in County funds. That looks good on paper, however, as we noticed at the public hearing these agencies are getting a little strapped. They are keeping their County dollars level, but the State funding is remaining level as well. There is a little bit of concern there from their end as far as the services they are providing. From a financial standpoint we are able to manage within our expectations.

The third page gives you a history of the County funding. As you can see, it's been pretty much steadily climbing since the 2003/04 Fiscal Year. We are up to just over $12 million total now going into next year. These numbers, again, are based on July 1 to June 30. Our calendar year budget that we will begin the process pretty soon for 2009 will probably reflect also an increase in County funding to these agencies. There are some years that we have some surprises where it may not quite mirror this. Something may come up. There are some years where the numbers might be a little worse. I think we are looking at probably about the same amount of money to go out when we do our calendar year budget as well.

The fourth page of the Summary does show within Children and Youth's proposed budget there are 12 new positions. These 12 positions total approximately $330,000. This is only a six month cost for those positions, 14% of the total position cost is covered by the County, about $46,000. All 12 of these positions are approved by the State in the Children and Youth Needs Based Budget. They are not on the County complement as of today. When these positions come up to be filled they will have to be created by the Salary Board. None of the other funds had any new positions included in the budget.

The last two pages of the Summary show where the money comes from and where it goes in the form of a pie chart. As you can see almost 90% of the funding comes from the State and Federal government. Seven percent comes from the County and 4% comes from other sources.

Page 6 you can see 82% of the expenses in these funds goes directly to care providers. We have caseworkers on staff. Most of the care, these are a lot of pass through funds through all these agencies, is actually provided by private entities. Salary and benefits make up 11% of the total cost.

We went over this in pretty good detail last Wednesday at the public hearing and the numbers are what we went over last week, with the exception of that one grant with EMA. Do you have any questions?

Mr. DiFrancesco: Mike, I don't know if you can show me this or if I have to go to Human Services to get this, but the pie chart that shows where the money comes from, Federal, State, County, do you have information of what programs the money is coming from? If I ask you to show me that same pie chart, but only show it as TANF, Medical Assistance, whatever the different program is, could you do that or would I have to go to Human Services for that?

Mr. Yohe: I can get that. Do you want on total? This is a total of all the funds.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Right, what I want to see is the pots from which the money comes, not just Federal and State, but actually where they are coming. The reason I want to see that is I want to see the flow, for my own benefit, how much money even coming from the State is actually money coming down from the Feds to the State and how much is coming through State programs?

Mr. Yohe: This is what this chart shows.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I know, but. You're telling me that the 48% that is State would not be any money that is handed down to the State and the State decides how it gets distributed. That is what I'm looking for.

Mr. Yohe: I'll have to verify that. My understanding of the Chart of Accounts that was set up that I pull this from, if it is a Federal source it has to have a Federal CFDA number and a separate revenue code.

Mr. Haste: Even if it comes through the State?

Mr. Yohe: I'll verify that. This should be. If it says Federal it should be originated at the Federal level. We get very little directly from the Federal government. It all goes through the State. Even if it comes through the State it is still designated as Federal. I'll verify that.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Let me know for sure.

Mr. Haste: Can you check with Peter on something? When Sandy was here there was a discussion about us sort of getting a waiver and doing block grant type of funding. I know there were some discussions, because I had a discussion with the Deputy Secretary as well. Just because there has been a change of personnel in the Human Services Director's position, I don't think we should drop that. Just ask Peter the status.

Mr. DiFrancesco: If I recall, the Department, not that they approved anything, but they actually were considering. They looked at it favorably.

Mr. Haste: I was at a Court and Corrections Meeting and she was there and she indicated that they may look at it favorably.

Mr. Yohe: If there is nothing else, we need a vote to make this available for the 20-day inspection period.

It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Haste that the Board place the 2008/2009 Fiscal Year Budget on the table for the 20-day inspection period; motion carried.

Mr. Yohe: It will be available at the Receptionist's desk here on the 4th Floor.

Mr. Haste: Can you also put it on the web?

Mr. Yohe: I can.

1. Robert Burns, Director of Area Agency on Aging
   1. Area Agency on Aging 4-Year Plan, 2008/2012

Mr. Burns: I'm here today to discuss the Office of Aging 4-year Plan for 2008 through 2012. We are required by the State to file that plan. The State also files one with the Federal government, Administration on Aging. I copied you on a draft of it. Both the format and the subject matter are determined by the State. They tell us what they would like us to identify and they establish four goals, which are key priorities of the State and Federal governments and ask us how we will carryout those goals. We discussed some of those at last week's budget hearing. I met with Commissioner Hartwick and Peter Vriens and both have given their consent to move forward with the plan in front of you. Fred Lighty has reviewed it for legality. If the Commissioners ultimately approve the plan your signature assures that we are spending the money on the programs that are identified in the plan and those assurances come to the Board in the form of our budget, which we reviewed last week with Mike.

Just very briefly, the goals that were identified that we need to address are: First, how to empower older adults and their families to make informed decisions about their health. By the way, all of these goals we can meet with existing programs. We plan to do that through public outreach, family group conferencing and Medicare Part D meetings that we conduct throughout the County where we try to provide information to consumers. The second is to enable seniors to remain in their homes and communities as long as possible with services in their homes. We do that through our waiver program and that is the one program that has seen a fairly significant increase in funding the past few years. The effort there is to keep people out of nursing homes, which is more costly. Third is to ensure the rights of seniors to be free of exploitation and abuse. We try to accomplish that through the efforts of the County's Elder Abuse Task Force and working with the District Attorney. The last goal is to increase opportunities for seniors to remain active and healthy. In that we try to highlight the increase in funding that we provided to our senior centers over the last four years. We have increased their funding by about 37%. We tried to use those parameters, but at the same time highlight some of the programs that we offer in the County, such as the Task Force, Family Group Conferencing, Senior Center Funding and things that might separate Dauphin County a little bit from some others. We did talk a little bit about the challenges that we face, as Mike just mentioned, with the continued stagnant funding from State and Federal sources. Our funding has gone up about 1% over the past three years so that continues to be a concern as does the growth of the lottery fund, which has actually been less than what has been projected. Those are some of the concerns. Commissioner Hartwick did ask us to make sure we address that in the plan. If the Board has any specific direction you would like to see included before next week's meeting we would be happy to do that.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Are we using Family Group Decision-making now? Have we used it at all with any seniors?

Mr. Burns: We have. We had four conferences. We started it about six months ago. We are averaging just under one per month.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Have you seen the same benefits that they experience?

Mr. Burns: Absolutely. I think we'll use it on a smaller scale just because the need is going to be less than with children, but the four cases we've had have all had very good outcomes. Most of those cases, in fact I think all of them, have involved trying to keep someone out of a nursing home and trying to help the family create a care plan that can keep them in the home. So far all four have worked out very well.

Mr. DiFrancesco: With regards to State funding, I know there were some questions raised recently and I don't remember if it was in the meeting here or whenever about the lottery fund and where that money is going. What is going on with the lottery dollars? Are they being split policy-wise and diverted to other programs or is it simply that sales are down? What is going on?

Mr. Burns: Sales are down from where they are projected to be. Revenue hasn't been as great. There have been various proposals to take lottery money for purposes other than seniors. The one we discussed last week that we couldn't identify at the time was a proposal that the Governor made a few years ago to put on to the fast track property tax reform. He was going to do that by taking funding out of the lottery, which was a big concern to the Aging community. There have been other proposals similar to that to fund programs using lottery dollars. Not all of them have happened. No major expenditures have come out of the lottery, but there seems to be a lot more competition for the money and it does not seem to be a belief at the State level right now that that money should be dedicated solely for programs to benefit the elderly. That's usually the rhetoric.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Okay.

Mr. Haste: If you could identify one challenge over the next four years that you think we could help in what would that be?

Mr. Burns: I think the one that the County could help in is just continuing to make available to us resources that really won't result in a budget increase, but having access to County detectives to investigate allegations of abuse has been a big help to us. I know they are short staffed, but nonetheless they have always been willing to assist us. I think that is one of the reasons we've had an increase in the number of arrests and people charged with exploiting seniors. With them being right down the hall from us we are able to walk down and run things by them. Having access to them, Sheriff Lotwick and one of his deputies are a big part of what we do. Ed Marsico has spent a lot of time on aging issues. I think a lot of it is sharing resources. We work a lot with Craig Williard in Weatherization on mutual clients, same with MH. I don't know that it is anything that would require an expenditure, but I think just continuing to promote the notion of departments working together. It definitely benefits us greatly.

Mr. Haste: We will have this on the Agenda next week.

PERSONNEL

Ms. Lengle: I have one Salary Board item. Are there any questions on that? (There was none.)

Are there any questions on the any of the items in the Personnel Listing? (There was none.) I would like to request a vote for New Hire #12. I also want to mention that there is a request for someone to participate in the educational incentive program.

Mr. Haste: Is that.

Ms. Lengle: Parks & Recreation.

It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Haste that the Board approve New Hire #12 of the Personnel Packet; motion carried.

PURCHASE ORDERS

Mr. Baratucci: There is nothing out of the ordinary in your report other than the budget issues that we will resolve between now and next week. Do you have any questions on any of the items? (There was none.)

TRAINING PACKET

Mr. Haste: We need to approve Items #1 and #2, both are for IT. Item #2 might have been in earlier, but I held it and questioned it. Apparently that is what Microsoft charges us to stay certified. It seems a little high.

Mr. DiFrancesco: I think it is a pretty good racket they have. They charge you a lot for the software, they regulate your licenses and then they charge your employees to stay certified to use it. What a deal.

It was moved by Mr. DiFrancesco and seconded by Mr. Haste that the Board approve Items #1 and #2 of the Training Packet; motion carried.

ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Refund of 2007 & 2008 Real Estate Taxes, Parcels #65-034-084 and #65-032-062 - Metal Industries, Inc. - $162.90.

Mr. Haste: We don't need to take action on anything under Items for Discussion.

SOLICITOR'S REPORT - WILLIAM TULLY, ESQ.

Mr. Tully: There are no changes and everything should be in order for next week. I would be happy to answer any questions? (There was none.)

CHIEF CLERK'S REPORT - CHAD SAYLOR

Mr. Saylor: A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a County called Dauphin and that County had a committee of various staff. The job of this Committee was to review reclassifications as.

Mr. Haste: That was when we had a really good Chief Clerk.

Mr. Saylor: Legend has it. This issue has come up as I've talked with some of our staff members. We need to communicate amongst the departments about reclassifications when they come up, particularly in departments where you have staffers who do similar things, like IT, Personnel and that kind of thing. As reclassifications happen perhaps a personnel employee in one department is way out of class with a different employee. I talked to you individually and everyone seems to agree that it would be a good idea to reconstitute that committee. We are going to take steps to do that. Also, it came about that apparently in the early 1990s a company called Felice Associates did a study of our classifications. I believe that came about as a result of some new unions that came into place. We still have a copy of that and we are taking a look at what Felice had recommended back then and we are going to kind of look at what their recommendations were and what changes were made and see what is going on since then. We believe that we can do this without taking an outside vendor, just take an internal look and see where things stand if at all any changes need to be made. I just wanted to put that in the record. Unless there are any questions of me that is all I have.

Mr. Haste: I think that is a good idea.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Was it your original idea or what?

Mr. Haste: It was either mine or Richie's.

COMMISSIONERS' COMMENTS

Mr. DiFrancesco: Just a recap. I had the pleasure of going down to Reading yesterday with District Attorney Marsico. The US Attorney for the Eastern District began a task force on gangs that was really a 222 Corridor initiative in the eastern district. So, really it was an initiative that ran from, I believe, the Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton area down through Lancaster. While we were not originally a part of it, we have grown closer to this task force and have taken some active roles with it. It was really neat to sit in a room yesterday and see literally mayors from just about every community within this umbrella region, a number of county commissioners, a number of DAs and police chiefs partaking. It was just really neat to sit back. It was the first time I attended the meeting and to see someone simply taking the lead on a coordinated effort and they profiled some of the real victories in terms of combating gang violence and gangs in general. They showed the ways that they have been able to do it by bringing coalitions together by communities helping one another with investigations and all types of initiatives in sharing information. It was a really good program. It opened my eyes quite a bit. It's really good for us. I don't think we have the level of gang activity that other communities have, but we do have growing signs of gang activity. So, if we can take all the benefits and all the lessons learned from these other communities who do have real gang presence and learn these lessons early, we can continue to attack it and keep it out of our community. I want to commend the US Attorney for his leadership and just say we are part of something that is rather large and doing well.

Mr. Haste: I think you are aware, the Prison staff, each year, attends a gang seminar so they learn the latest trends and identifiers. Actually the local police departments have learned to rely on some of the staff at the Prison for those signs. Hopefully that keeps us on the front end of that as opposed to reacting.

Mr. DiFrancesco: Another thing they were talking about was re-entry programs and things we are talking about doing in general. It was a very good program.

Mr. Haste: I just want to commend, Larry Moore in particular, but the Dauphin County Parks and Recreation Staff, if you did not make it to the Blues Festival on Saturday shame on you. It was actually an excellent event. The weather scared some people from attending. I saw a lot of folks out there. It was really neat to see families spread out on blankets and having picnics. Everyone was enjoying the music and having a good time. It was a pretty neat experience. So, if we have more of those I think you ought to get there. Larry has worked real hard at it. I'm amazed at his contacts too. He got some really good blues bands there that were from the DC/Baltimore area that apparently are very well recognized bands. It was a nice event.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Mr. Haste: We are again at the point in time in the meeting 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. Haste that the Board adjourn.