Wellness program gets county funding | News
POTTSVILLE — Schuylkill County will spend almost $20,000 to help keep its employees healthy, as the commissioners last week approved that expenditure.
The $19,354 actually came from the county’s health insurer, Capital Blue Cross, in the form of wellness credits. County Administrator Gary R. Bender said it is money well spent.
“Blue Cross gives us a lot of good things,” he said at Wednesday’s commissioners meeting. “It has paid dividends for us in reduced health costs.”
More employees are participating in the program, headed by Jackie Hughes in the engineering department, Bender said. The wellness committee is about six years old.
The commissioners also authorized spending $1,601,084 by the Northeast Pennsylvania Alliance for the relief for the hospitality industry in the county.
Bender said the appropriation is purely procedural, since the commissioners already had voted to hire NEPA to handle the program.
“You have to have the budgetary authority,” he said.
Commissioner George F. Halcovage Jr. said the transfer was an internal governmental one, and the county will actually give the money to NEPA at a later date.
The commissioners also appropriated $27,368 to the office of Prothonotary Bridget McGowan Miller to enlarge the scope of her project to digitize all of her office’s files. The money will come from the automation fund.
Commissioners Chairman Barron L. Hetherington said Miller is more than doubling the project’s scope, from more than 2 million records to more than 5.8 million.
Also on Wednesday, the commissioners approved 2021 budget adjustments of $28,399 for the courts and $31,100 for mental health/developmental services, and 2020 budget adjustments of $13,043 for the district attorney’s office, $1,044 for the Election Bureau, $2,114 for the prothonotary’s office, $17,469 for soil conservation and $6,101 for the treasurer’s office.
“They do not involve new spending,” just moving budgetary authority between line items, Director of Finance Paul E. Buber said.
In other business, the commissioners:
• Appropriated an additional $35,000 for the Drug & Alcohol program.
• Approved partnering with Berks and Chester counties to split a $100,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection to develop Chesapeake Bay action plans. Berks and Schuylkill each will get $32,500, while Chester will get $35,000 because it is administering the grant. Bender said the plan is intended to reduce pollution in the watershed, which includes western Schuylkill.
• Authorized the treasurer’s office to open a bank account titled Port Carbon Borough Tax Collector to deposit county and municipal real estate taxes received from taxpayers. Bender said the account is needed because Port Carbon has no tax collector at this time.
• Approved a $12,281 agreement with Antz Energy Systems, Shenandoah, to install an air conditioning system in the Central Booking Office.
• Approved a revised personnel policy covering instances when county employees are called for jury duty.
• Approved an agreement with Ashland for a Community Development Block Grant housing rehabilitation program. Bender said Ashland will get $30,000 to help rehabilitate housing for low-income people.
• Approved a $23,845 sales agreement with Revize Software Systems to redesign and host the county’s public-facing website.
• On behalf of the district attorney’s office, authorized a contract cap increase of $4,620 to enable it to buy 10 licenses for maintenance and upgrades of software and support.
• Appointed Kyle Swetz, of Hazleton, as the new solid waste/recycling coordinator, at an annual salary of $38,262.
• Appointed Elisa Seip, of Pine Grove, and Shea Selgrade, of Girardville, as Drug & Alcohol management specialist trainees. Each will earn an hourly salary of $17.0086.
• Appointed Matthew Donnelly, of Ashland, and Mark Hysock, of West Mahanoy Township, as part-time corrections officers. Each will earn an hourly salary of $21.7486.
