Photo: Lycoming County Commissioners Rick Mirabito, Scott Metzger, Tony Mussare, Administrative Manager Lycoming County Commissioners, Eileen Ebner and Lycoming County Controller, Krista Rogers.
By: Todd Bartley
News@TalkWilliamsport.com
On Thursday, the Lycoming County Commissioners issued a press release titled “Transfer of Financial Functions”.
It was released in response to “Caught in the Middle” an in-depth report by TalkWilliamsport.com.
The press release from Lycoming County Commissioners Rick Mirabito, Scott Metzger and Tony Mussare reads as follows:
“We offer these thoughts in response to the Controller’s attempt to politicize our recent personnel actions. As Commissioners, we have dedicated ourselves to providing efficient and effective government functions to the taxpayers of this County. That was our sole motivation for transferring a few employees and their related functions back to the County’s fiscal department (now called the Office of Budget and Finance), where they were capably handled for years.
It is an unfortunate reality that these functions were and are not being performed timely or competently under the Controller’s supervision. In fact, repeated errors in basic things such as processing payroll and continued failures to produce reports and year-end entries on time evidenced this poor performance.
Two years ago, the Controller argued that the now transferred functions should be placed under her jurisdiction. The Commissioners agreed to do so with the expectation that the transfer would be seamless and have no effect on County government and County taxpayers. Plainly put, that expectation has not been fulfilled, despite the two years the Controller has had to absorb the functions and debug any problems.
And so it has become apparent to the Commissioners that they need to transfer, at least for now, these functions back to where they were capably handled for many years, to protect the County, its employees, and its citizens. The Controller claims that this action is illegal, but the Commissioners believe otherwise. While the courts may need to resolve that contest, what is beyond dispute is this — the transferred functions that were not competently handled by the Controller will now be done well and timely.”
This is a developing story on TalkWilliamsport.com.
