PERSONNEL & ADMINISTRATION

Monday, March 17, 2025 - 10:00 AM

Meg Wood, Chairperson

JoePete Wilson, Vice-Chairperson

Chairwoman Wood called this Personnel Meeting to order at 10:00 am with the following Supervisors in attendance: Clayton Barber, Matthew Brassard, Chris Clark, Robin DeLoria, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Ken Hughes, Steve McNally, James Monty, Cathleen Reusser, Favor Smith, Matt Stanley, Davina Thurston, Ike Tyler, Joe Pete Wilson, Margaret Wood and Mark Wright. Charlie Harrington was absent.

Department Heads present: Judy Garrison, Dan Manning, Jennifer Mascarenas and Michael Mascarenas.

Also present: William Tansey and Roy Holzer.

News media: None present.

WOOD: Good morning everyone. We will start the personnel and administration committee meeting now. Jen, do you want to come down? Thank you. This meeting is called to order, thank you.

J. MASCARENAS: Good morning. I have my monthly report and my updated vacancy list for everyone. If there is any questions on that?

WOOD: Any questions? Jen, has posters for the job fair on May 8^th flyers to get the ball rolling on that.

J. MASCARENAS: Yes, an Essex County job fair that we worked with CVTech on is going to be May 8^th 9 to 4 and we are going to be working on getting that information out to the departments so we can have them participate so that will be coming in the next month or so.

WOOD: Does anyone have any questions about that job fair? Any remarks they would like to bring forward at this time?

MASCARENAS: The only other thing I would add on this I’m meeting with all the attorneys from the departments in which they represent this week to try and come up with some thoughts and/or ideas to start moving that process along regarding some of the vacancies we have in some of our more needed positions so stay tuned. We are going to meet with them on Wednesday.

WOOD: Okay that’s great. I know we spoke a little bit last week about Federal monies and changes that are possibly coming, possibly it’s a little early to make any kind of projections so obviously we don’t expect anything from you yet.

MASCARENAS: Right, just in a nutshell we have about $9 million dollars in Federal funds we get on annual basis that come through the Feds they are a varied of funding streams some support positions, some do not so like Mr. Dougan I believe his resolution earlier was a $3 million dollar Federal aid project if that went away well, we probably wouldn’t do a Federal aid bridge during this year and long term have to figure out how we are going to fund our bridges so does that hurt? Absolutely. Does it hurt as bad as something that’s mandated that you have to provide and have to immediately have to find ways to fund it? No. So those are kind of what I’m going through right now the non-mandates verses the mandates, the infrastructure dollars verses the service dollars they are all kind of separate and distinct and I want to be able to define that for you a little bit better.

WOOD: Right and as things progress you’ll keep us posted with the personnel issues and stuff like that.

MASCARENAS: Yes mam.

WOOD: Anybody have anything?

DOTY: Jennifer if you wouldn’t mind addressing motor vehicle license clerk. You have one application but I’m guessing you got any number of openings here where you would need that person. Where I’m going with this is, we’ve been debating for months now what to do with the major investment this board put into the DMV office in Lake Placid and it doesn’t look at least reasonable to us that that’s going to be filled anytime soon so we are debating whether to take that room back or not. It’s a tough deal. It’s not like I want to turn my back on the county but that room could represent some much needed revenue for our town hall and I don’t know if your office in Ti is facing the same thing Mark?

WRIGHT: I just signed the lease agreement for this year for the DMV office in our town.

DOTY: So you were able to fill positions there?

WRIGHT: There are people that come down occasionally. It’s not open a lot.

MASCARENAS: The last conversation I had with the County Clerk on this, it’s really a two-pronged thing and we have the finance meeting here in a few minutes and we can ask her for an update. The issue was we are getting those positions filled but they are individuals that lack experience because the office is generally new. The other thing we’re looking at is the profitability of the DMV’s in the locations that they exist so she can tell you with pretty much some certainty that the Ticonderoga office is beneficial not only for the residents but for Essex County and the business we do there. The difficulty in Lake Placid is I don’t think she was established long enough to even know and since an office had opened from what I’m told in the Saranac Lake area and you would almost be competing with your neighbors that are really close together where with the Ticonderoga location there’s not one between there and Warren County so we get a lot of Washington County people we get those individuals that go to that Ticonderoga office so I’m not speaking for the County Clerk please don’t think I am but I do have some knowledge on the issue and when she comes I think we’ll ask her at the next meeting for an update.

DOTY: Thank you.

WOOD: Anybody else have any questions or remarks for Jen?

THURSTON: I have a question regarding the MEO, HEO trainee positions. I think everyone here knows that the CDL requirements have changed there’s classes people have to take. Is this something that the county is paying for them to get their CDL or do they have to have a CDL in order to get the position?

J. MASCARENAS: Well, it really depends on what position they are applying for. We are trying to get people in the door. I know Jim will train them in getting their CDL license so if you see a trainee on there that’s what that is for.

THURSTON: Okay so the HEO, MEO trainee the county would pay for and help them get their CDL license?

J. MASCARENAS: The MEO trainee.

THURSTON: Right, right.

MASCARENAS: Right so you’re looking at two different things here and understand and DPW in particular the positions are a bit of a moving target. If you see our postings sometimes we might put out three or four different titles to see what we can get and then we’ll reestablish that title depending on who we got so just like you said, these MEO, HEO trainee positions some of them are there to allow for recruitment and retention of individuals right somebody that is taking on a little more work, a little more responsibility might go from an MEO to an HEO trainee so that’s the in between title now for all those individuals but it wouldn’t be unlike Jim to put a position out there I didn’t get any MEO, HEO’s but I got some laborers so we reclassify that position, it’s a lower level, lower pay and then we’ll train that individual to hopefully get them and pay for their CDL so we’re really being creative in that. So sometimes when you see these positions that’s what’s currently there locked in the budget, that’s the room he has to wiggle and play with but he can’t go higher than he can only go lower.

THURSTON: So if the county hires a laborer with the intent of getting them their CDL, making them into an MEO and they county pays the whatever $5,000 do they sign on for a term so if they don’t stay for six, eight months whatever?

MASCARENAS: Correct. It’s a three year term and it’s pro-rated I think that’s the case. So for every year of work we’ll take so much off of that total. We did have a town that took one of the individuals that we trained and the town reimbursed us they didn’t make the individual which I thought was a nice gesture on the town’s part but the agreement is with the individual not the place hiring them but some people are going to pay that back and we certainly have that in place.

THURSTON: Okay thank you.

WOOD: Anything else?

J. MASCARENAS: I did just want to state, civil service state civil service contacted me and they have approved the HELP through June 26 so that’s still going to be in place for another year.

WOOD: Okay, alright. That’s it. Thank you. Judy.

GARRISON: Good morning. I have just submitted my monthly report and I don’t have anything in addition to that unless you have questions for me?

WOOD: Does anybody have any questions? Any remarks? No. Thank you Judy. Okay, Mr. Manning.

MANNING: I don’t have anything to report but I would like to ask we go into an executive session with respect to legal advice regarding Governor Hochul’s most recent executive order current state of emergency regarding the prison guard strike and DEC.

WOOD: Moved by Mr. Smith, second by Mr. Brassard.

THE COMMITTEE MOVED INTO AN EXECUTIVE SESSION AT 10:10 A.M. TO DISCUSS LEGAL ADVICE REGARDING GOVERNOR HOCHUL’S RECENT EXECUTIVE ORDER CURRENT STATE OF EMERGENCY REGARDING THE PRISON GUARD STRIKE AND TO DISCUSS DEC AND MOVED BACK INTO OPEN MEETING AT 10:50 A.M.

WOOD: We are out of executive session at 10:50 a.m. If someone could make a motion. Moved by Mr. Favor second by Mr. Brassard. Anything else to come before this committee?

THURSTON: Dan has a resolution on the agenda.

MANNING: If there is any questions about this, Bill is taking care of it. We need a resolution authorizing Essex County to enter into a contract with Dr. Sikirica Forensic Medical Service, PC to provide forensic medical services to Essex County for a one-year term January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025. Bill can answer any questions. My understanding that he is the forensic pathologist that we’ve been using and we definitely need a contract with him.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN OR COUNTY MANAGER TO EXECUTE A CONTRACT WITH DR. SIKIRICA FORENSIC MEDICAL SERVICE, PC TO PROVIDE FORENSIC MEDICAL SERVICES TO ESSEX COUNTY FOR A ONE-YEAR TERM JANUARY 1, 2025 THROUGH DECEMBER 31, 2025. Favor, Brassard

WOOD: Is there a dollar amount attached to this?

MANNING: I ask the floor to be given to Bill so he can answer those questions.

TANSEY: Dr. Sikirica is going to be $1700 per autopsy and they we could also pay under a separate contract we pay Glens Falls Hospital $1500 to use their spaces the number of autopsies is going up.

THURSTON: Does that include testing autopsy testing?

TANSEY: That all comes under the Glens Falls contract, the labs and such.

THURSTON: The labs yes, thank you.

WOOD: Any other questions, any remarks? All in favor, none opposed – carried. Is there anything else to come before this committee? We are adjourned.

As there was no further discussion to come before this Personnel and Administration committee it was adjourned at 10:53 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Judith Garrison, Clerk

Board of Supervisors