PERSONNEL - COMMITTEE
Monday, March 20, 2023
- 10:00 AM
Stephanie DeZalia, Chairperson
JoePete Wilson, Vice-Chairperson
Chairwoman DeZalia called this Personnel
Meeting to order at 10:00 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Robin
DeLoria, Stephanie DeZalia, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie Harrington,
Roy Holzer, Ken Hughes, Steve McNally, Noel Merrihew, James Monty, Tom
Scozzafava, Matt Stanley, Joe Pete Wilson, Davina Winemiller, Margaret Wood and
Mark Wright. Clayton Barber and Ike Tyler were
excused.
Department Heads present: Judy Garrison, Dan
Manning, Jennifer Mascarenas and Michael Mascarenas.
New media:
Alana Penny, Sun News.
DEZALIA:
Good morning. We’ll call this
Personnel Administration committee to order and we’ll start with Jen.
J.MASCARENAS:
Good morning. I think I have
given you all a copy of my monthly report and updated vacancy list. I
apologize, I lost track of my days so I didn’t get it to Judy by Wednesday. We
still have 67 full time positions vacant and I have added the part times on
there so you can see how many part times we have. We have 23 of those.
DEZALIA:
Anybody have any questions for Jen?
DOTY: I
should probably see Chelsea but I’m under the impression there are four new hires
for the Department of Motor Vehicles that are being trained right now in hopes
that we might be able to open up the Lake Placid branch in the spring or even
mid-summer?
J.MASCARENAS: I’m not sure about four but, she
may have four vacancies but I know we hired two new over there.
DOTY: Okay so two would only really help here?
J.MASCARENAS:
Right.
MASCARENAS:
Yeah, I don’t pretend to know everything those employees have to go
through in terms to be properly trained, you probably have a better idea than I
do but I think we need to ask when is a reasonable timeframe to try to reopen
those campus’ in Ticonderoga and/or North Elba.
I know that even with proper staffing it can be a struggle because when
you factor in time off and those types of things, when they opened up those
satellite offices they never increased staffing levels it’s my understanding
from what I’m learning about it. Which means that everybody is short when that
happens, you get one call in and it starts an issue so I think if we’re going
to open those I think we need to properly staff them long term and look at the
revenues that are generated in those local departments to make sure that the
revenue generated is worth the hire and I have collected some of that
information I’m happy to share that with both, with the whole board quite
frankly in terms of what those offices were bringing in. I got that last week so I can share that with
you all.
DOTY:
Thank you.
J.MASCARENAS:
Also, just for your reference, since January 1st we’ve lost
19 employees and we’ve hire 12.
DOTY: So
basically, everyone is wearing many hats.
J.MASCARENAS:
Yes in many departments.
SCOZZAFAVA: I will be putting an application in
in January. (laughter)
HUGHES:
Good morning Jen. Just a quick
question for personal education. Can you
please explain why Keene Central School is listed on our list here?
J.MASCARENAS:
Sometimes we have the different you know, towns, villages and schools
that are having a hard time recruiting they’ll ask for us to post it on our
website just to get it out there a little bit more.
HUGHES:
Thank you.
MASCARENAS:
And for those of you that are not aware of Personnel, those ancillary
employees that work at schools are part of civil service if you weren’t aware
of that so we do all those test orderings, qualifications for those individuals
that may not be teaching staff.
DEZALIA:
Okay, anything else? Alright,
thank you Jen.
Judy –
GARRISON:
Good morning. I just submitted a
monthly report. I do not have anything in addition to that unless anyone has
any questions for me?
DEZALIA:
Any questions for Judy? No? Thank
you Judy.
And Dan.
MANNING:
I just have a few things you should have before you a resolution joining
the new national settlements of pharmacies Walgreens, Wal-Mart and CVS
approving the execution of New York State opioid settlement sharing agreements
and releases. This resolution regards
our joining the national settlement against Walgreens, Wal-Mart and CVS as we
have in the past we have participated in litigation settlements with TEVA and
Allergan, Johnson & Johnson and a few others and we are starting to see proceeds
of those lawsuits start to trickle in. This will allow us to participate in the
settlements with Walgreens, Wal-Mart and CVS as with the other settlements we
are to get .036 or round it off to .036% not .03 but .036% of the overall
settlement numbers which are in the billions so it is quite a lot of money. We are in line with Seneca County, Yates
County, Franklin County and Hamilton County those counties are getting the
.036% there are a bunch of counties in here with .04%, .05% of course Nasa
County the bigger counties will see larger gains, larger shares so I need a
motion with this resolution and a second.
RESOLUTION
JOINING THE NEW NATIONAL SETTLEMENTS WITH PHARMACIES WALGREENS, WAL-MART AND
CVS APPROVING THE EXECUTION OF A WAL-MART NEW YORK PAYMENT OPIOID SETTLEMENT
SHARING AGREEEMENT, RELEASE AND ANY OTHER ASSOCIATED DOCUMENTS; THE CVS NEW
YORK PAYMENT OPIOID SETTLEMENT SHARING AGREEMENT, RELEASE AND OTHER ASSOCATED
DOCUMENTS; WALGREENS NEW YORK PAYMENT OPIOID SETTLEMENT SHARING AGREEEMENT,
RELEASE AND OTHER ASSOCIATED DOCUMENTS AND AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR
COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE THE SAME TOGETHER WITH ANY AND ALL OTHER NECESSARY
AND PERTINENT DOCUMENTS REQUIRED TO SETTLE ESSEX COUNTY’S INTEREST IN THE
CURRENT NEW NATIONAL SETTLEMENTS WITH WAL-MART, WALGREENS AND CVS. Hughes, Stanley
DEZALIA:
Anymore discussion on that? All
in favor.
MANNING:
And also with respect to, as you’re all aware we are participating in a
statewide indigent services grant with the State of New York which to date,
we’ve been participating for the last five years. I believe we are at $1.13
million dollars that we have, yeah. $1,131,700.00 that we have obtained or in
the process of obtaining to help with our criminal indigent people defense
expenses. You know off the top of my
head we’ve been able to pay for salary increases to all the public defenders,
we’ve been able to pay for an additional public defender, we’ve been able to
pay for a part time public defender, we’ve been able to pay for full expense of
our Conflict Defender, her salary, her office expenses and her administrative
assistant. We’ve been able to supplement
our Counsel of First appearance attorneys who, exclusively only show up at
first appearances because the law has changed which is in my opinion, I don’t
have an opinion on it. So, we pay that.
We pay all the expenses on the Finucane Building which houses our Conflict
Defender and Public Defender. We pay for case management so this is really
helped us a tremendous amount. Without
it we would be $1 million dollars short this year and eight-hundred, six-hundred
and three-hundred in the others. Because
we haven’t spent all the money for that five years we have to apply for a
contract extension, they are willing to extend it for one year so I would like
is a resolution authorizing the county chairman or the county manager to
execute and forward a contract extension with the Office of Indigent Legal
Services exte4nding our ILS for one more year in order to spend the unspent
funds we haven’t spent yet on the current five year grant.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE AND FORWARD A
CONTRACT EXTENSION WITH THE OFFICE OF INDIGENT LEGAL SERVICES, EXTENDING OUR
ILS FOR ONE MORE YEAR IN ORDER TO SPEND THE UNSPENT FUNDS ON THE CURRENT
FIVE-YEAR GRANT. DeLoria, Merrihew
DEZALIA: Any questions on that? No?
All in favor.
MANNING: Okay and just for your edification
they are extending these grants another three years until April of 2027, so we
have three more years of money and I think it’s going to be a hype. This last one stays in. We didn’t’ get $1.3 million, that’s what we
are getting this year actually I may have misspoken it may be a lot more but
anyway, we are getting more money so it’s a good thing.
On the Westport Hotel, I made a lot of headway
finally been able to after numerous calls and speaking to numerous people and
finding out who was on first I’ve been able to touch base with the people that
listen to you regarding the release of tax warrants. As you know, the Westport Hotel had hundreds
of thousands of dollars of tax warrants against it, there were five of
them. One $45,000 and one $35,000,
$4,000, $5,000 and $12,000, something like that in addition, there was a
workers’ compensation lien all those are going to be released so we’re getting
the releases they are in process. How
long it takes? I don’t know but I’ve seem to find someone who is really excited
about doing this. I’ve spoken to the
attorney on the other side and she has stated that her client is willing to
purchase provided these are all cleaned up.
There does leave some additional liens on the property that in my
opinion these liens are stale, they are outlawed because of the filing the list
of delinquent taxes & real property tax matters but it’s hard to get that –
so we’re making a lot of progress there.
Then just finally I would like to ask for a resolution. I ordered two abstracts with title one for
the Westport Hotel in the amount of $800.00, and one for Golden Ring which was
$1200. I used exclusively Holcombe
Abstract which generally we don’t we would go out for quotes however, Holcombe
had done all the work on Golden Ring before so I wanted to keep that continuity
and I needed that stuff rather quickly so I would like a resolution authorizing
payment to Holcombe for the Golden Ring Abstract of $1200.00 and the Westport
Hotel Abstract of $800.00 please.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING PAYMENT TO HOLCOMBE ABSTRACT FOR THE GOLDEN RING ABSTRACT IN THE
AMOUNT OF $1200.00, AND THE WESTPORT HOTEL ABSTRACT IN THE AMOUNT OF $800.00. Stanley, Merrihew
DEZALIA:
Any questions on that? Any
discussion? All in favor.
MANNING:
I would like to go into a brief executive session.
MONTY:
Just a quick question back to the opioid settlement that money, what is
it specifically targeted for?
MANNING:
A portion of it you can use for whatever you want.
MASCARENAS:
What we have been doing currently is we’ve been doing it to do opioid
programing. We’ve haven’t been using it
for general Government support. We’ve
been trying to put those funds in the hands of individuals that do that work
and give them some extra tools. Law
enforcement we did the K9 units with those, there was a real nice article this
weekend about the K9 units which I enjoyed.
We give some money to Public Health so that they could do some of those
visitations with new moms, those types of things and I’ve got a request in
front of me right now for Mental Health that want to do some program with those
funds so the Board could certainly go in that direction with a portion of the
funds and use them for general operating costs.
I don’t know that we need to at this time but I think it’s worth having
the discussion about where we are at financially. I think we’d get more leverage out of those
funds putting it into programming long term that we can support some of these
things for multi years that we wouldn’t have another mechanism to do that with
so, that’s really just making a decision of weighting the benefits verses the
cost and see what direction the board wants to go but we can put something
together if you want that shows you that.
MONTY: I
was just curious.
MASCARENAS: It’s an allowable thing.
MONTY:
How it was tied into the settlement usually settlement agreements ties
us on how you can or can’t use it.
MANNING: I agree with Mike but the settlement
does allow for, I’m not sure if it’s half the money is unallocated and the
other half has to be used in connection with Mental Health and it runs the
gamut, it could be something the Sheriff’s Department is doing, you know, it is
very broad but I think Mike’s solution is well taken.
MONTY: Thank you.
MANNING:
We do have to account for all that.
MASCARENAS:
Linda is accounting for it in terms of projects in Munis so when those
monies are taken out of one account to the other and the way those expenses are
coming in are being tracked.
MANNING:
There is also a statewide pot of money too I’m sure you are aware of.
MASCARENAS:
Yes, some of that from what I understand and you’re probably aware of
this is going directly to the Community Services Board I think a chunk of that
money is going to that board and they can do what they want with it too. So now for your executive session.
MANNING:
Yeah, I would like to go into a quick executive session regarding the
jail lease the State Police.
DEZALIA:
Moved by Noel, seconded by Davina.
THE COMMITTEE MOVED
INTO AN EXECUTIVE SESSION AT 10:15 A.M.
TO DISCUSS THE JAIL LEASE WITH THE NEW YORK
STATE POLICE
AND RETURNED TO OPEN
SESSION AT 10:37 A.M.
DEZALIA:
We are moved out of executive session.
Moved by Davina, seconded by Mark.
MANNING:
Just one last thing I’d like to ask for is a resolution authorizing me
to continue to negotiations with the New York State Police relative to the
lease of their space up at the Emergency Services facility.
RESOLUTION
AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY ATTORNEY TO CONTINUE NEGOTATIONS WITH THE NEW YORK STATE POLICE RELATIVE TO THE LEASE OF
SPACE AT THE EMERGENCY SERVICES DEPARTMENT.
Stanley, Wright
DEZALIA:
Any questions? All in favor. Anything else? Alright, we are adjourned. Thank you.
As
there was no further discussion to come before this Personnel Committee it was
adjourned at 10:38 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Judith Garrison, Clerk
Board of Supervisors