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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-08-06 Commissioner Minutes WEDNESDAY, August 6, 2025 The Franklin County Commissioners met on Wednesday, August 6, 2025, with the following members present: Dean A. Horst, John T. Flannery and Robert G. Ziobrowski. Commissioner Horst presided and after calling the meeting to order, a Moment of Silence, and the Pledge of Allegiance, proceeded with the business of the day. County Administrator Carrie Gray asked that Salary Board and Personnel be removed from the agenda today. On a motion by John T. Flannery; seconded by Robert G. Ziobrowski; the Board unanimously approved to adopt the amended agenda. The minutes of the July 30, 2025 meeting were reviewed. On a motion by John T. Flannery; seconded by Robert G. Ziobrowski; the Board unanimously approved the minutes. There was public comment from John Jordan who is concerned about homelessness in Franklin County and the funding used to address the issue. Valerie Jordan stated she was going to read something that she just googled and proceeded to comment about funding and projects for affordable housing in the future. She also asked that the jail spending be put back on the agenda and requested the commissioners consider doing YouTube so people can hear and to be more transparent in this county. Commissioner Horst discussed the homeless veterans situation with Mrs. Jordan further and asked Administrator Gray to address the budget for affordable housing. Ms. Gray stated staff Emergency Rental Assistance Program that was funded with some of the COVID money from the federal government. The actual housing trust fund from 2024 to 2025 increased by 49% in the budget. On a motion by John T. Flannery; seconded by Robert G. Ziobrowski; the Board unanimously approved all consent agenda items to include: All bills presented and ordered paid in the amount of $43,925.66. Election Integrity Grant Program Post-election Report being submitted to the Department of Community & Economic Development documenting the election expenses funded under the eligible expense categories for the May 2025 Municipal Primary. Act 88 requires that the County submit a report within 90 days following a general, municipal, or primary election. For the period of January 1, 2025 to June 30, 2025, the total amount of expenditures that will be covered by this grant is $177,927.69. Intergovernmental Cooperative Agreement between the County of Franklin, Court of Common Pleas and Pennsylvania Department of Human Services to maintain and improve the effectiveness of the Title Iv-D Child Support Enforcement Program for the period of October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2030. Agreement between the County of Franklin and PA Department of Human Services for the Human Services Block Grant totaling $6,194,141.00. Services for Mental Health include: Community Employment, Community Residential Services, Community Services, Emergency Services, Facility Based Vocational Rehabilitation, Family Based MH Services, Family Support Services, Housing Support Services, MH Crisis Intervention, Outpatient services, Peer Support Services, Social Rehabilitation Services and Targeted Case Management. Intellectual Disabilities Services include Case Management, Community-Based Services and Community Residential Services. Homeless Assistance Services include Case Management, Rental Assistance, and Emergency Shelter. Sub-stance Use Disorder services include Case Management, Medication Assisted Therapy, Outpatient/Intensive Outpatient, Partial Hospitalization, Prevention, Recovery Support Services, and other interventions. The Human Services Development Fund provides Generic Services. All categoricals have Administration costs. Agreement between the County of Franklin and CDW Government, LLC for a license addition to allow call queue functionality in our Microsoft Teams implementation. Even with this additional licensing, we are still falling within budget of the project. This year's cost is prorated to half price of the two following years of our 3-year contract at a cost of $31,229.00. This will be paid by an allocation across all operations. About 68% is estimated to be paid by the General Fund. The Board appointed Barbara Selman to the Franklin/Fulton County Mental Health/Intellectual & Developmental Disability/Early Intervention Advisory Board. The Board reviewed regular agenda items. County Administrator Carrie Gray provided a high-level overview of each of the actions. Supplemental Appropriation to Prothonotary budget of $15,000.00 to fill long standing vacant position (Legal Assistant). The position was not included in the FY 2025 budget due to the extended duration it remained vacant and unadvertised. This appropriation would provide budget for September-December 2025. This will be paid for by the General Fund. There was a motion by John T. Flannery; seconded by Robert G. Ziobrowski for discussion. Commissioner Flannery said that he spoke with the Prothonotary in regard to this request information, he believes, for the sake of transparency to discuss this. He asked Ms. Gray when Franklin County sold the nursing home. Ms. Gray responded 2013. Commissioner Flannery continued that about 12 years ago and he believed after the sale of the nursing home, the staffing of Franklin County was in the 500 to 550 employee range. He believes when the county owned the nursing home, the county was around 700 employees but after that sale 100 plus employees left employment with the county or moved to the new owners of the nursing home. In out adding any new departments and maintained services that we provide. In his opinion, payrolls especially in government can be very easily bloated over times especially when you feel you have the money to add employees, add programs, and other things along that nature. Over the last year, the Commissioners have taken the approach to look at the employee roster and look at positions that have not been filled orthat have not been needed to be filled and eliminate those positions off the roster so they can get a hold of where the county really should be as far as how many employees there should be, how bloated we are, and if we are wasting our resources when it comes to payroll. Over the course of the past year, six months, many department managers and many elected officials have worked with the Board closely to reduce some of these vacant positions on the roster that obviously person would ask do we really need to fill that position? thinks Franklin County provides some of the best services of any county in the state. Again many of the department managers and many elected officials have worked closely to reduce the numbers and when this came up and he saw this last week he reached out to the Prothonotary and asked him that this position has not been filled for the past 18 months. Why now? The answer was that he was promised the position and that things were backing up and that he wanted to keep it open and he wanted to fill it as of now. He trusts the Prothonotary running that department,but he still has the question as to why now if we can make it 18 months without filling this position. To his understanding, the workload through the courts has not increased. Commissioner Horst stated that Commissioner Flannery asked a couple of questions that he had. One being the workload of the office, if you can survive 18 months without it, what in the workload has shifted to make this need present today. He stated he is on the fence. Commissioner Ziobrowski asked Ms. Gray if the people in the office are scheduled 37.5 per week. Ms. Gray stated that was correct. Commissioner Ziobrowski then asked if the Prothonotary approved in a perfunctory manner if there's a workload that requires them to work 40 hours. He asked if that request has taken place? Ms. Gray stated there is a process to increases and the Prothonotary any additional hours to increase his staff from 37.5 to 40 a week. Commissioner Ziobrowski continued that absent such a request strikes him that adding an s premature. He would want to see more evidence that the handled before they approve the position. On a motion by John T. Flannery; seconded by Robert G. Ziobrowski; the Board did not approve the request. Agreement between the County of Franklin and Splashwire Inc for professional services and staff augmentation. Rather than filling the vacant Help Desk and Desktop Support positions, this service will provide 24x7 help desk operations and software tools to help meet those needs at a cost of $10,995.00. Please note this is a monthly cost. This will be paid by an allocation across all operations. About 68% is estimated to be paid by the General Fund. Commissioner Horst asked how does this benefit the county? Chief Information Officer JoshHinkle stated that one of the things it does is it gives us 24/7 coverage, which right now, it has been a struggle with staff. We ask them to work 8 to 5 Monday through Friday and then try and cover us for the after hours. About 50% of the ticket overhead comes in for onboarding, offboarding, and staffing changes within the county. The focus is to create some automation in that process and provide some additional tools to the Franklin County IT department as well. If they can offload that many level for the rest of internal departments to the county and get coverage 24/7. Particularly for staff to have to cover th Commissioner Horst asked if those tier one respond on the weekends to on site or just behind a desk somewhere? Mr. Hinkle stated it would be behind the desk primarily. Some of it will be sitting up here in the office during business hours. Obviously, after hours two will be solving and troubleshooting. If we have a real outage, say infrastructure that failed at will escalate to tier two, tier three of internal county IT. Commissioner Horst asked Ms. Gray if there is a need for afterhours tech support. Ms. Gray stated we do, and we struggle to fill it, especially when things are urgent and time is of the essence. Having somebody that picks up the call all the time will make sure we get to the right eliminate the need to go onsite all the time, but it will help get them there quicker. She did ask Mr. Hinkle to do a return on investment. The positions that would be eliminated equate to a little over $14,000.00 a month and this proposal is just under $11,000.00 a month. Commissioner Horst saving about $3,000.00 a month. He then asked about the responsetimefor the 24/7 service, is that two hours? Mr. Hinkle stated when the call comes in, they should get somebody on the response; little longer time. The big issue has been for people afterhours getting access to their computer, being able to perform their job. On a motion by John T. Flannery; seconded by Robert G. Ziobrowski; the board approved the agreement. Agreement between the County of Franklin and Paul E. Witter and Pamela J. Witter and Steven L. Hykes and Lynn M. Hykes for the sale and purchase of an agricultural conservation easement on their farms at a cost of $199,175.85 and $302,236.20 respectively. This will be paid by Ag Preservation funds. Planning Director Quentin Clapper explained if approved this would take their total approved acreage to 20,232 acres and they have about 1,600 more in processing currently. Commissioner Horst asked Mr. Clapper, just for public information, to explain the agricultural easements. Mr. Clapperexplained that the process for going through that is at the start they do an appraisal of the property both as a fair market appraisal and as a farm only appraisal. The cost difference between those two is how they determine the value of the easement. The easement that they purchase then restricts that land to permanent agricultural use. There are some stipulations that allow for two acres to be subdivided to build an additional home and those sorts of things but ensuring that that farmland always supports permitted but also making sure that there is land available to farm. Commissioner Flannery asked if solar panels are not allowed. Mr. Clapper stated that was correct but wanted to clarify limited on-site solar panels are so if someone installing solar to support their farm the farmland itself that is permitted. Commissioner Flannery then asked how many do we have on the waiting list to be preserved at this point? Mr. Clapper stated roughly 60. Our Community Planner in charge of a preservation, has met with about 15 people now this year that are interested in the program. They have until the end of the year to get applications in. Commissioner Flannery continued that if he mistaken, he heard this number yesterday, that four percent of our land is preserved in Franklin County. Commissioner Ziobrowski sated that at 20,000 acres, Letterkenny Depot and it represents about four percent of our 750 or so square miles. Pretty Significant. On a motion by John T. Flannery; seconded by Robert G. Ziobrowski; the Board approved the agreements. The Board conducted a bid opening for Sheriff Mid-Size SUV. Ms. Gray stated there are a total of four bids. The following bidders submitted bids per the attached document titled Ford, Bonner Chevrolet, Jennings Chevrolet, and Wild Rose Chevrolet. Procurement Director Robin Harmon stated as a reminder we needed this is for transportation, handling of weapons if they are doing relinquishment under PFA, extraditions where they may want a less police-looking vehicle to be a lower profile and is funded under a grant. Ms. Gray asked if one week is enough time to verify the bids. Ms. Harmon stated one week would be fine. Commissioner Flannery asked for the publics understanding one week is for review, to make sure it meets the requirements. Ms. Harmon stated yes, they do their responsiveness and responsibility review. Responsive for making sure they met all the requirements of the bid. Everything they can actually deliver the product. Commissioner Flannery asked if based on those findings if they would then make a recommendation to the Board. Ms. Harmon stated that was correct. The Commissioners presented a check to Matthew Wedd of the Conococheague Institute for the employee dress down fundraiser that was held in July. Keri Kenney, HR Coordinator, said that employees raised a total of $650.00 for the cause. 122 employees from around 22 departments contributed. She wanted to thank everybody for the support every month. Mr. Matthew Wedd stated they have been doing volunteering with the county for several A few years ago the county funded the playground and that was the big volunteer thing that year. This year, their biggest initiative is the new animal husbandry. They now have livestock and breed livestock on site. For that volunteer day the county leadership put the final touches to the animal pastures where they have sheep and goats. That has changed the way their programs have s a living farmstead and because of that they had their busiest spring ever. 3000 students from across the county came to the site for tours and is also why the volunteer day is so important. With 3000 students on site have time to mow. They had the volunteers building the pasture, mowing, weed whacking, tending the garden and that physical impact of volunteerism is very important to them as a nonprofit. Once a year is great, but they would love to have them once a week. They would really appreciate it. They have events every weekend and throughout the fall as well. Their next one is Harvest on the Homestead. Rep. going to attend, and he would love to have the Commissioners attend as well. Commissioner Horst stated as he says every month, the county has the best employees anywhere from this amount and up. They are great at giving to the community and giving back We support each other and help each other out. He has never been there but did want to know what kind of muskets they have. Mr. Wedd stated they have an exhibit on Firelocks and Frontier that has a Matchlock Musket, a Doglock Musket, a KPattern Longland or the Brown Bess Musket, and a Pennsylvania rifle. But just last month a doner came with a rusty rife and asked for them to id it and clean it up. It because it was smooth bored. They did a restoration on it and found it to be a 1763 French made musket that was issued to America and has American stamps on it making it late Revolutionary War. The doner is giving it to them to have a temporary exhibit for San Francisco next year. Commissioner Flannery first thanked Ms. Kenney and the employees. He told Mr. Wedd he could sit there and listen to him talk all day and promised he will be out soon. Commissioner Ziobrowski stated that he came out last summer to the mixer and was taken back by the exabits and found it just to be fascinating. The artifacts and so on and so forth. He . He was looking at all the other cool stuff. He thinks they are doing a wonderful job and is very proud of the employees . Mr. Wedd stated the next mixer will be next month and he would get the information out to them. Janelle Friese, Fiscal Director, and Teresa Beckner, Chief Financial Officer, provided a revenue 2026 Revenue Forecast and made a part of the minutes. Commissioner Horst stated that he had no questions but was excited about this and to move in its like a household budget and you can only spend what you got. excited to see how it works. He knows getting the buy in from the elected officials and the other Commissioner Flannery thanked the chairman for coming up with the idea asshould have done a long time ago. It gives a new way of looking at our budget and he thinks that there have been tremendous inaccuraciesover the years with the budget and done it. He thinks this is going to dial it in a lot better, as well as get the department managers and our elected officials more involved. Commissioner Ziobrowski stated that the whole process has been enlightening. Ms. Frieseand Ms. Becknerthen provided a fiscal update to the Board which is attached and titled May2025and made a part of the minutes.Commissioner Ziobrowski askedin terms of Human Services, in terms of the social safety net, what are we spending compared tot last year? During public comment, the Board has been accused of all sorts of malfeasanceas far as not funding certaincutting the budgetfor stated that the county spent the same $16 million through May of this year aswas spent through May oflast year.Commissioner Flannery asked once again this month, if everything looks good. Ms. Friese stated that everything looks good. Commissioner Horst then stated that in the news we hear about Harrisburg not getting a budget passed,and it could be next week or two months rom now. He knows we are good as a county but asked for an expanded explanation on the 90- dayreserve. Ms. Becknerstated that Harrisburg willnot be in session till September, it does affectour cash flow,and they are constantly taking a look at it. They continue to monitor what the mandated services are, making sure that they have contracts in place so there is no slip in servicesprovided in any way. They havenot changedhow theypay our providers. This also has affectedemployees or operations.Commissioner Flanneryasked how longwe can sustain this.Ms. Becknerrepliedthat'swhy we have a 60-dayreserve. Commissioner Flanneryasked if a budget gets passed in Octoberor November, the county would still be okay. Ms. Beckner statedthat right now with the tax collections that the county has have earlier in the year, the county is stillvery cash flush. The meeting was adjourned at 11:10a.m. on a motion by John T. Flannery; seconded by Robert G. Ziobrowski. Carrie E. Gray County Administrator/Chief Clerk FRANKLIN COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ____________________________________ Dean A. Horst, Chairman ____________________________________ John T. Flannery ___________________________________ Robert G. Ziobrowski Bidder List Franklin County Sheriff SUV Bids accepted until: 04:00 PMBid Opening: 10:00 AM Tuesday, 8/5/2025Wednesday, 8/6/2025 PRICE 1.Hondru Ford, Elisabethtown, PA$ 59,813.00 2026 Chevy Traverse 2.Bonner Chevrolet, Kingstown, PA$ 59,787.00 2026 Chevy Traverse 3.Jennings Chevrolet, Chambersburg, PA$ 58,721.50 2026 Chevy Traverse 4.Wild Rose Chevrolet, Shenandoah Iowa$ 55,970.00 2026 Chevy Traverse 5. 6.